10 MLB Prospects Who Impressed This Offseason
Image credit: Henry Lalane (Mike Janes/Four Seam Images)
Throughout the months of November and December, the team here at Baseball America works long days and nights putting together the annual prospect handbook for our readers. Each year, 900 scouting reports are written, edited, proofed and proofed again before we turn in the final product the Friday before Christmas.
Throughout this process, many of us are responsible for not only writing multiple chapters, but also proofreading the work of our peers. Throughout this rigorous process, each of us on the handbook team becomes familiar with prospects outside of our range of coverage. While plenty of names from each handbook season will be filed away into the recesses of our mental filing cabinet, there’s always a select few who shine above the rest.
Over my two full handbook seasons here at Baseball America, I’ve become accustomed to heading into the holiday break with a list of players in my head. They become prospects for me to research and dive deeper into. Below, I have listed a group of shining stars from this season’s handbook work. Some of these players I became familiar with through my own work, while others I gained an appreciation for while reading others’ work.
Luis Morales, RHP, Athletics
Age: 21
Morales was signed out of Cuba in January of 2023, after defecting on a trip to Mexico with the Cuban U-23 team. He debuted in the Dominican Summer League and pitched his way up to High-A Lansing by the end of the season.
Morales mixes four pitches in a four-seam fastball, slider, curveball and changeup. His bread and butter is his upper-90s four-seam fastball and his sweeper slider sitting 82-84 mph with, on average, 14-15 inches of horizontal break. Morales throws from a free and easy operation, with little to no effort to generate upper-90s smoke. His slider is an excellent bat-missing weapon, generating whiffs at a rate of 65% of swings against the pitch.
Morales is still refining his command, and that’s the biggest question mark on his profile outside the typical durability questions that come with all pitching prospects. He is a high-upside name to know who could explode in 2024 following his first full offseason stateside.
Henry Lalane, LHP, Yankees
Age: 19
Lalane is a 6-foot-7 lefthander with command for a mid-90s four-seam fastball with above-average ride and run. At 19 years old, Lalane dominated in his stateside debut, striking out 34 batters to four walks over 21.2 innings.
Lalane is still raw and a long ways away from the major leagues, but he shows a combination of power, pitch traits and command that’s rare for a 19-year-old, and even more rare from a 6-foot-7 lefthander. Lalane mixes a trio of secondaries in an upper-70s sweeper slider, a mid-70s curveball that’s a slower version of the slider and a changeup.
His best secondary at the moment is his changeup, sitting mid-80s with tumble and fade, Lalane does a good job of selling the pitch with armspeed. During his brief FCL tenure Lalane generated a 43.4% chase rate against the changeup with a 50.7% swing rate. There’s still room for growth, as Lalane finds a more defined breaking ball shape and improves command of his secondaries. Lalane is a rare combination of size, stuff and command.
Kyle Teel, C, Red Sox
Age: 21
Teel is a standout athlete in general, but he really shines when compared to the majority of the players at the catcher position. Selected by the Red Sox with the 14th pick, Teel was an amateur player of note dating back to his time as a New Jersey prep prospect. Teel hit .343/.433/.547 over three seasons with the Cavaliers, seeing most of his time in the field behind the plate, with the occasional start in the outfield. After debuting in the Florida Complex League, Teel skipped Low-A, jumping directly to High-A Greenville. After just 14 games hitting .377/.485/.453, he was promoted to Double-A Portland, where Teel hit .323/.462/.484 over nine games.
Teel showcased advanced plate skills, running a 78.6% contact rate, 13.8% in-zone whiff rate and 19.1% chase rate across all levels. Teel’s skills, even in a small sample, proved to be advanced, hinting at the ability to hit for average with above-average walk rates. His power is still developing, and the small samples didn’t show much in the way of underlying raw power. Teel is of average size and build but is strong athletically, hinting at more power to come. His likely power ceiling falls more into the average to fringe-average range, but his combination of advanced hitting ability and athleticism behind the plate could produce a valuable everyday catcher.
Termarr Johnson, 2B, Pirates
Age: 19
Johnson has not been the high-contact hitter capable of hitting for high averages many billed him as coming out of the draft. While Johnson’s archetype is different than expected, he’s hardly been a disappointment.
There’s certainly some questions around Johnson’s hit tool in the traditional sense, as his bat-to-ball skills weren’t very good in 2023, as shown by his 67.1% contact rate and 27% in-zone whiff. Despite this, Johnson was able to keep his strikeout rate at a respectable level (26%) for 2023. Johnson is able to offset his swing and miss with a patient almost bordering on passive approach, as he rarely expands the zone, limiting his whiffs to inside the strike-zone. Johnson still has issues with spin, as he hit just .161/.373/.226 with a whiff rate of 46% against sliders and curveballs (*per synergy sports). Some of this is to be expected of a teenager in full season, and Johnson is likely to improve in this regard as he ages.
Where Johnson really stands out is his power production and quality of contact. Among players 19 years of age or younger who spent all of their 2023 with a full-season affiliate, there are four players who average an exit velocity of 88 mph or above, a 90th percentile exit velocity of 105 mph or above and produced an xWOBA of .350 or higher; Samuel Basallo, Xavier Issac, Luke Adams and Termarr Johnson. This puts Johnson in the company of the best power hitters in the lower minors. The biggest worry is his ability to elevate consistently, which against the larger pool of prospects his age isn’t really a concern, but his groundball rate was high in 2023. Despite the warts, Johnson’s combination of an uber-patient approach and plus power make him a potential impact regular as a bat-first second baseman.
Connor Phillips, RHP, Reds
Age: 22
This feels a little like cheating, as Phillips has already debuted in the major leagues. However, Phillips represents a player I had only minimal touchpoints with over the last few seasons. Phillips, drafted by the Mariners and traded to the Reds, has played nearly all of his professional, junior college and high school baseball on the other side of the country. During the Top 100 process, I dug in more on Phillips’ arsenal and corresponding video, and I came away impressed.
Phillips spent a majority of the season dealing with different minor league experiments, first the pre-tacked ball in the Southern League followed by the ABS and challenge systems in Triple-A. Phillips showed improvement to his walk rate in Double-A, but crashed in Triple-A before settling closer to his career norm in the major leagues.
All this to say it’s difficult to pinpoint whether or not the command actually improved or if Phillips benefited directly from the pre-tacked ball that allowed his stuff, particularly his riding four-seam, to play up. Command is the lingering question that will determine whether Phillips succeeds as a starter, as stuff and handling a starter’s workload are not an issue. Phillips has built up from 76 innings in his professional debut in 2021 to 109.2 in 2022 and 125.2 in 2023. Not only has Phillips added workload each season, but he’s also shown he can hold his plus stuff.
Phillips mixes a four-seam fastball that sits 95-97 mph, touching 98 mph at peak with plus vertical break and good plane, with two distinct breaking ball shapes in his low-80s curveball and his mid-80s slider that both drove whiffs at a rate of 40% or better. There’s a lot to like with Phillips, and he seems to have the starter traits often lacking when we’re talking big stuff-low command pitching prospects.
Lazaro Montes, OF, Mariners
Age: 19
When Montes signed with the Mariners for $2.5 million, he was considered one of the top hitters in the 2022 international class. He had a solid debut in the Dominican Summer League in 2022, where he hit 10 home runs and slugged .585, but also struck out in 33.2% of his at-bats. In Montes’ stateside debut, he did not eliminate the swing and miss in his game but did alleviate some of the concerns, as he ran a 25.3% strikeout rate over 72 games split between the complex and Low-A Modesto.
If you’ve followed my writing, or my fantasy recommendations, in recent years you will know that I value outlier power, even if it comes with some hit-tool concerns. There are reasonable hit-tool questions with Montes, as he ran a 28.6% in-zone whiff rate in 2023. Some of this is offset by Montes discerning balls from strikes, as he chased at a rate of just 22.2% in 2023 while balancing aggression and passivity well.
Montes’ power, however, is the selling point: His 106.3 mph 90th percentile exit velocity ranks thirds among all players 19 or younger who received 300 plate appearances. Montes not only has easy plus-plus raw power, but also the ability to make his best contact at optimal angles—his .381 xwOBA in 2023 was the highest among players 19 years of age or younger with 250 or more plate appearances in 2023. If Montes can make incremental improvements to his contact rate in the coming years without sacrificing his power hitting or excellent angles on contact, he could develop into one of the feared power hitters in the major leagues one day.
Aidan Curry, RHP, Rangers
Age: 21
The Rangers not only had one of the better drafts in 2020, but they also landed Curry as a nondrafted free agent. A tall, projectable righthander from a New York high school, Curry has developed into one of the Rangers’ top pitching prospects.
Curry mixes four pitches, but his fastball and slider account for 90% of his usage. Despite sitting 92-93 mph on his fastball, the pitch garners plus grades due to its excellent shape, as Curry generates 18 inches of induced vertical break with 12-13 inches of run on average. Curry’s slider is his best pitch, sitting 82-84 mph with around eight to nine inches of horizontal break. The pitch was rarely hit by opposing hitters, and when it was, it wasn’t for damage. Curry generates whiffs in and out of the zone with the pitch, and uses it as an effective weapon when he gets ahead in the count.
His development of a third pitch and added power to his arsenal should be his focus in the coming years. Curry is 21 years old entering 2024 and has plenty of time to add strength and refinement.
Echedry Vargas, SS/2B, Rangers
Age: 18
A lower bonus signing in 2022, Vargas has proven to be one of the better pop-up names from the 2022 Dominican Summer League, as he impressed in his stateside debut.
Vargas hit .315/.387/.569 with 11 home runs in the Arizona Complex League, while showing the ability to handle multiple spots in the infield. His underlying data is excellent, as he shows a balance of bat-to-ball skills (18% in-zone whiff), power (103.9 mph 90th percentile EV) and excellent angles on contact (22.5 degree hard-hit launch angle and 6.4 degree pull-side launch angle). On video, it stands out as an incredibly pull-happy swing, which leads to some questions around the stability of his contact, particularly with an aggressive approach (32.4% chase).
Despite some warts when you dig in deep on Vargas’ plate skills, his combination of potential for plus raw power and barrel control make him an interesting follow heading into 2024. There’s some risk and reward with profiles like this, but the idea that Vargas could blossom into a power-hitting infielder drives my intrigue.
Yophery Rodriguez, OF, Brewers
Age: 18
After signing for $1.5 million—which was the highest bonus in the Brewers’ 2023 international class—Rodriguez delivered with a solid showing in the Dominican Summer League, hitting .253/.393/.449 over 52 games with a 17.9% strikeout rate and a 18.3% walk rate. While Rodriguez’s line is solid, under the hood the data hints at greater upside.
Rodriguez’s plate skills for a 17-year-old are pristine, as he ran a 79.7% contact rate, 15.1% in-zone whiff rate and 15.2% chase rate. This hints to a healthy ability to put the bat on the ball and discern balls and strikes. Rodriguez showed in-game power during his DSL stint, hitting six home runs with a 39.7% flyball rate. His exit velocity data shows promise with an average of 86.5 mph, more than six mph above the average for 17 year olds. Rodriguez shows the ability to find the barrel consistently and showed the ability to elevate the ball on his best contact with a 13.1 degree launch angle on balls hit 95+ mph.
Rodriguez ranked 13th in a loaded Brewers system and earned above-average run and field grades from Ben Badler. It’s possible Rodriguez could follow the lead of other fellow precocious Brewers outfielders in Jackson Chourio and Luis Lara by skipping domestic complex play in 2024.
Jun-Seok Shim, RHP, Pirates
Age: 19
Shim signed for $750,000 in January 2023 out of Korea and was one of the more buzzy names of Florida Complex League play, as he showed electric stuff in his four appearances. Shim mixes three pitches in a four-seam fastball, slider and curveball. His four-seam fastball is notable, sitting 94-95 mph and touching 96 mph at peak with both above-average ride and run with good plane that plays at the top of the zone.
His slider is a low-80s sweeper with on average 15-16 inches of horizontal break and high spin rates in the 2,800-2,900 rpm range. Shim’s curveball sits 76-78 mph with heavy two-plane break and spin rates north of 3,000 rpms. There’s a long way to go with Shim, and a variety of outcomes are in play, but with a starter’s build at 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds, Shim has a starter’s projection and upside with tremendous stuff to match.
