Reds Prospect Notebook

KISSIMMEE, Fla.—The elite college hitters who have gone off the board at the top of the draft haven’t spent much time in the minors recently.

Dansby Swanson went No. 1 overall in 2015, then played in Atlanta last August. Alex Bregman, who the Astros drafted one pick later, made his major league debut last July. The next college hitter off the board was 2015 College Player of the Year Andrew Benintendi, who went No. 7 overall to the Red Sox and was up in Boston last August.

That’s a year after the top college hitters drafted in 2014—Cubs catcher-turned-outfielder Kyle Schwarber and Mets outfielder Michael Conforto—played in the major leagues the following year too.

Reds 21-year-old third baseman Nick Senzel could be on a similar trajectory. The No. 2 overall pick last year, Senzel batted .329/.415/.567 in 249 plate appearances last year in the low Class A Midwest League. He’s starting 2017 with high Class Daytona, though he might not be there long.

In Daytona’s opening series at Florida (Braves), Senzel showed a lot of positive hitting traits, even if his timing seemed off early in the season. At 6-foot-1, 205 pounds, Senzel is a righthanded hiter with a simple hitting approach. There isn’t much in the way of rhythm or load to his swing, but he has good hand-eye coordination with a short, quick stroke. The ball carries well off Senzel’s bat and he’s comfortable hitting the ball to all fields, both in batting practice and in games. Against Daytona, nearly all of his hits went the opposite way. Strike-zone discipline has typically been a strength for Senzel, though in the opening series he didn’t seem to be tracking pitches as well as he normally does.

“He’s hit the ball hard this series,” Daytona manager Eli Marrero said. “Not a whole lot of luck, but he’s hit the ball really hard. He’s a very quiet guy at the plate. He doesn’t have a lot of movement. He’s a big, strong guy so he just puts the bat on the ball by using his hands very well. That’s what we want to see more of, because he’s the kind of guy who can get really hot and throw the team on his back.”

Senzel looked comfortable at third base, where he’s athletic with good reflexes and body control to go with a strong arm.

“He’s still learning in the field,” Marrero said. “He’s still a little bit in college mode—he wants to play everyone way back, back, back. But in this league, if they see you playing back there, they’ll bunt on you. He’s learning to be a little bit more agile at third base, with more quickness. Even though he played third base in college, he’s starting to see that here it’s more quickness, hand-eye coordination at third, being able to attack the ball, go from side to side. He did a really nice job of cutting that ball off today in front of (shortstop Alfredo) Rodriguez and coming across, making a nice throw. He’s making adjustments because the game’s a little quick right now, so he’s trying to learn and slow it down at the same time. I was really happy with the way he played third base the last couple days.”

Chris Okey, c

The Reds used their second-round pick (No. 42 overall) in last year’s draft on catcher Chris Okey, who signed for $2 million. Okey is active and agile behind the plate, blocking and receiving well throughout the series. His pure arm strength is about average but it plays up a tick because of his quick transfer when he threw out a runner attempting to steal second with a 1.95-second pop time.

“Oh man, Okey is a force back there,” Marrero said. “He’s blocking every ball that’s thrown in the dirt, so he’s giving the pitchers that confidence with men on third, men on first. It doesn’t matter if they throw balls in the dirt—he’s blocking every single one of them. He’s the type of guy who’s not a real big arm strength guy, he’s got to rely a lot of his quickness and footwork, and that’s what we’re trying to get him to do.”

Okey’s leadership skills drew praise throughout his time at Clemson. When righthander Vladimir Gutierrez, the Reds’ $4.75 million signing out of Cuba, made his minor league debut on Saturday, the jitters were apparent as Gutierrez’s command was scattered and he threw 42 pitches in the first inning. Gutierrez, though, seemed to settle in after a mound visit from Okey, escaping a bases-loaded jam in the first and then throwing another 3.2 scoreless innings.

“You know, I’m not sure if we understood each other,” said Okey, who was catching Gutierrez for the first time. “I know very, very little Spanish, but I tried to say a word or two that could maybe help him out. I could tell, even before I was going out there, that he was just trying to force getting comfortable rather than just letting it happen and trusting himself. For me, I just tried to say, ‘relax,’ that type of stuff, because I don’t know sentences in Spanish. Hopefully he fed off it. But he looked really good at the end of the game, so we’re all excited about it.”

Marrero cracked a smile when asked about that mound visit.

“I don’t know what they talked about,” Marrero said. “But they found a way to communicate and get it done. It’s a game of adjustments—they had to make an adjustment and found a way to do it. Even though there’s a big language barrier there, they figured it out. That’s what you want.”

Okey impressed with his defense behind the plate, though for any college catcher, there’s always a learning curve in the transition to the pro game.

“I think the biggest adjustment is calling your own game,” Okey said. “You have to be in every pitch, you have to know what you want to do and you have to keep up with the pace of the game. You’ve got to know your pitcher more than ever, what he likes to do in certain situations. You’ve got to know how the game is going, how you want to pitch a certain guy. You’ve got to know where the majority of a guy’s curveball’s misses are, so that way you can put yourself in the right situation here if he does miss it there again, you’ll be right there to block it or scoop it. It’s just knowing the scouting reports, being there for yourself, studying yourself, getting with other catchers and pitchers and seeing what they want to do throughout the game and going from there.”

At the plate, Okey made hard contact when he connected with near average raw power in batting practice, though contact frequency was an issue, particularly against offspeed pitches, with a profile that could make him a backup catcher with a chance for more.

Alfredo Rodriguez, ss

The Reds signed Rodriguez out of Cuba for $7 million on July 2, breaking their 2016-17 international bonus pool to d so and putting them under the penalty of being unable to sign anyone for more than $300,000 in the next two signing periods. It’s a big price tag for a player with significant offensive holes, but Rodriguez’s defense isn’t in question.

In his lone Serie Nacional season in Cuba in 2014-15, Rodriguez won a gold glove award, making highlight-reel grabs with a natural smoothness at the position. In the opening series at Florida, Rodriguez made several plays that showcased his athleticism, agility and quick reads off the bat. He’s light on his feet with a nose for the ball with the ability to make the acrobatic plays, making the difficult look routine.

Offensively, Rodriguez, 22, managed to put together some quality at-bats, but his hitting needs a lot of work. His righthanded swing isn’t long, but it’s not in the hitting zone for very long and he hurts himself by chasing too many breaking pitches off the plate. Rodriguez had no power when he was in Cuba, but he added more juice when he bulked up to 6 feet, 190 pounds while training in the Dominican Republic, though it’s still more doubles pop than home run power. If everything clicks for him, he could hit toward the bottom of a major league lineup one day, but there’s still risk in him hitting enough to get to that level.

“He’s not a big power guy—every once in a while he’ll get into a ball—but what you saw today is the type of player that he is,” Marrero said. “If you make a mistake with a fastball, you try to sneak a fastball by him up here with two strikes, he’ll get to that ball. I’ve seen him get to that ball and hit that ball right up the middle. You make a mistake with the breaking ball, he’ll shoot it right over the second baseman’s head. I’ve seen him do it in spring training and he’s been doing that here. He’s not a big, ‘wow’ power guy, but he knows how to hit. Sometimes he tries to do a little bit too much, he’s just got to learn to let things happen and take it from there, not try to force things. Sometimes he tries to do a little too much, tries to pick up the team too much, and I think he just has to go out there and play.”

Shed Long, 2b

Shed Long could prove to be a steal for the Reds as a 12th-round pick in the 2013 draft. He’s on the smaller side (5-foot-8, 180 pounds) but he has a short lefthanded stroke and a strong track record of hitting the last two seasons. Long has quick hands and good bat speed that generate surprising power for his size (he hit 15 home runs in 132 games split between a pair of pitcher-friendly leagues last year), though he’s just 4-for-26 (.154) with no extra-base hits to start 2017. He didn’t strike out much, but there wasn’t much squared up on the sweet spot either as his timing didn’t seem quite right early in the season. Long ranked as Cincinnati’s No. 16 prospect entering the season, and despite a quiet start, the offensive components are in place for his stock to jump this season.

“Long is a little bit of a puzzle right now,” Marrero said. “He’s not a big guy, but he’s got big guy power, to all fields. He’s trying to do a little too much, maybe over-swinging a little bit.”