I attended the Iowa Cubs games on May 11th and May 18th, and this is the first part of a two-part series of Live Looks. The second part will include writeups of Vinnie Pasquantino, Gabriel Cancel, Will Benson, Tyler Freeman, Mitchell Tolman, and Tobias Myers.
Nelson Maldonado, 1B/LF Chicago Cubs
Dates Seen: May 11 and May 18
I received word about Maldonado’s promotion from Double-A to Triple-A shortly after the Cubs made the move. I was unfamiliar with him, and the description going around the press box was that he “can really hit.” May 11th was the first opportunity I had to see him, and he was not at all what I expected. He was exclusively deployed as a 1B/DH in Double-A, so I expected someone tall and portly, but he’s so small in stature - he’s listed at 5’10” but is probably closer to 5’8” - that I don’t even have a comp on a first baseman with this size. He’s strong in his upper half, and that lends itself well to his offensive projection. The early claims that he can hit are true.
At the plate, Maldonado stands mostly upright with a slight bend in his knees from the right side. He starts slightly open with the back of his front foot off the ground, and he uses a modest leg kick as his timing mechanism before he closes into the pitch. There’s some pre-pitch bat movement but the swing itself is quiet and direct. He has above-average-to-plus bat speed, and it’s a short swing on a level plane that gets the ball in the air when he makes quality contact. There were a couple of instances of questionable swing decisions, including swinging on a 3-0 pitch, something that Cubs hitters apparently just do, but he otherwise showed a solid approach that includes a willingness to lay off pitches out of the zone and take a walk.
Maldonado got into a Brady Singer pitch on May 11th and pulled it into the leftfield suites. The raw power is probably average, which is still pretty impressive given the sheer size of Maldonado, and one aspect of Maldonado’s swing that really helps create this kind of pull-side power is the rotation in his hips. He’s never going to be confused with a legitimate slugger, but his body is pretty loose, and he has a knack for finding the barrel. It’s worth noting that all of the contact I saw him make went to his pull side.
Maldonado has split time between first base, the outfield, and designated hitter since arriving in Des Moines, and he played LF during the May 11th game. I didn't pay close enough attention to his performance to render an opinion, but I wish I had because it was his first career start out there, something I didn’t know until much later. In all, Maldonado is one of the more impressive pure hitters I’ve seen this year. He didn’t make our Cubs Top 30 this past offseason, but I’d push for him if we were to rerank the organization today. I’d tentatively throw a 50 or 55 on his hitting ability and a 40 on his in-game power. That compares favorably to Alfonso Rivas, and it’s probably a fair offensive comp to put on him at this point. That gets Maldonado into the 40 OFP range if he can play some defense. I plan to check back in on him in the coming weeks.
Nelson Velazquez, CF Chicago Cubs
Dates Seen: May 11 and May 18
Although he shows an ability to track pitches and lay off stuff out of the zone, Velazquez has a swing-happy approach on balls over the plate. His swing is level, and he has explosive bat speed, but his actual bat-to-ball skills are below-average. He takes big cuts up there, and it’s indicative of what he’s trying to do at the plate. He swung through both velocity and off-speed stuff in both of my views, and it’s pretty obvious he’s going to battle strikeouts at all levels. One concerning moment occurred on a 3-0 fastball down the heart of the plate that he simply swung through. He’s obviously confident in his ability, and presumably had the green light on 3-0, but that was probably the best - and most predictable - opportunity he had to make an impact, and he simply missed the ball. He went on to draw a walk in that at-bat.
Velazquez’s off-season report noted his ability to destroy mistakes, and that’s probably true to some degree, but I did not see him make quality contact in my two looks. Across the two games, he went 0-for-7, with a pair of walks and three strikeouts. The saving grace was his ability to take a walk, and it’s attributable to what I would call above-average zone recognition. Velazquez played CF in both games I saw, but there was nothing particularly notable about his performance. He’s a fringy runner and doesn’t cover a lot of ground out there, but he looked at least playable at this level. He’s probably best utilized in a corner when he moves up to the big leagues. More concerning to me was an instance where he had an opportunity to possibly beat out an infield grounder to the shortstop, but he simply saw Tyler Freeman make the play and then jogged to the bag. He was ultimately out by a full step. I know this is a pretty common outcome in baseball, but small things like that are bothersome, if only because they often carry over into other facets of the game.
There are big league tools here, notably the raw power, but he’s simply going to have a tough road ahead if he can’t make consistent contact. I don’t hate his approach at all because he does show a strong feel for the zone, but those bat-to-ball skills leave a lot to be desired. He’s appropriately ranked as a 40 OFP, and he looks destined to become some kind of bench slugger.
Update: Velazquez was called up to the Chicago Cubs on May 30th, shortly after this blurb was written. He was sent back to Triple-A on June 1st.
Jared Young, 1B Chicago Cubs
Dates Seen: May 11 and May 18
Jared Young was on a big hot streak and started to gain some attention on social media right before I saw him. He spent the latter part of 2021 with the Iowa Cubs, a team I’m close to, and I’ve never once really given much thought to him as a future big leaguer. We didn’t even give him consideration in the offseason for the Cubs Top 30, and that list originally started around 50. I mention all of this because, without the musings of Twitter folk commenting on his performance, I probably wouldn’t have paid too much attention to him come May 11th or 18th. Part of the reason is that he’s a 26-year-old, former 15th-round pick of the Cubs, but the other part is he’s always been overshadowed by other, higher ranked prospects. It’s the nature of the beast; that is, we as evaluators tend to favor younger players.
The thing that immediately stands out about Young is the quality of the body. He’s a legitimate 6’2” with broad shoulders but a trim core and lower half. He’s not overly strong, but he’s also not slight. He has the look of an outfielder but there’s some stiffness that probably works best at 1B. He split his time between 1B and RF when I saw him, and while I didn’t see him make many plays at the bag, he’s steady enough that there’s no real reason why he can’t stick. I’m more intrigued by his bat.
Young stands upright and open from the left side with a slight bend in his knees. He’s pretty quiet pre-pitch minus some sway, and he takes a moderate step forward into the pitch while transferring his weight from his back foot. The sum of the swing creates some impressive bat speed, and he actually has a pretty low center of gravity when he makes contact with the ball. This kind of leverage is capable of generating some legitimate power despite his lack of traditional strength. It’s not going to show up in any of the box scores from the games I attended, but the swing should produce at least average raw power, particularly to the pull side. More impressive, though, is his patient approach. He has a strong feel for the strike zone, but he’s also willing to sit back and burn strikes until he finds a pitch to drive. He simply battles through at-bats.
Perhaps the one knock on him, at least that I witnessed, is that the majority of his swing-and-misses and foul balls came on off-speed stuff. He certainly has some pitch recognition, and I don’t think he’s purely a fastball hitter, but as is common with a lot of batters, I can imagine the quality of contact is probably better when he’s getting fastballs. I didn’t see him actually get a hit during my looks - he went 0-for-7 with three walks and a strikeout - but there are enough positives in his approach and the swing mechanism itself that I feel comfortable putting a 45 on his hitting ability. His in-game power should be about the same. That roughly makes him a 35 OFP and a potential future big leaguer.
Oscar Gonzalez, RF Cleveland Guardians
Date Seen: May 18
Gonzalez has captivated my imagination while performing my Daily Sheet duties, so much so that I considered him the guy I wanted to focus on the most while attending the May 18th game in Des Moines. He’s a unique player; he is the rare slugger who doesn’t strike out. He also does not walk, and it’s that question about his approach that plagues him (and it spurred a mid-game conversation with Justin Lada, which I’ll share here shortly).
I was three feet from Gonzalez, separated only by netting, while he stood in the on-deck circle. He’s a big dude with an impressive body, and it’s really the thing that stands out when you first see him. He’s tall and built, and the body really is the quintessential corner slugger stereotype that we so often talk about. He has upper body strength in both his back/shoulders and arms, and that kind of strength carries through his core and into his quads. He’s pretty well maxed out, and is every bit of his listed height and weight (6’4”/240).
Gonzalez is an intimidating presence in the batter’s box. He stands upright and open with some bend in his knees, and he uses a slight leg kick as his timing mechanism. There are some similarities in the swing to Marcell Ozuna’s, but Gonzalez finishes much more closed than Ozuna does. His aforementioned approach is very swing-happy, which he’s able to succeed with because he has above-average bat-to-ball skills. There’s some swing-and-miss here, which is mostly attributable to the frequency in which he actually swings, but he moves the bat around the zone pretty well and regularly makes contact. The problem is the quality of contact is not always good. He’ll kind of dive at the ball to put it in play rather than sit back and wait for something to lift. He produces too much weak contact on the ground for a guy with the raw ability to regularly put pitches in the bleachers.
There’s huge bat speed here (specifically check 1:37 of the above video for reference), but the quality of the swing itself varies, and a lot of that understandably has to do with what he’s swinging at. You can see him getting jammed and swinging at something he simply shouldn’t, and that’s a common occurrence. He does pretty well to hold off on pitches out of the zone, but he simply doesn’t lay off 50/50 balls at the corner unless it’s strategic (i.e. the first pitch in an at-bat), and you can tell that his pitch recognition is below-to-fringe-average. I really wish I would have seen him more during the series to make that call, because the half grade difference could really separate his OFP.
Here’s where Justin Lada and I started talking. He knew I was at the game and messaged me about whether the approach works, and the conversation went from there. His thought is that big league breaking balls might eat him alive. There are few people I trust more than Justin when it comes to evaluation and, more specifically, evaluation of Cleveland’s system, but I think we may disagree here to an extent. Gonzalez’s pitch recognition is definitely something less-than-average, but I think his bat-to-ball skills can really overcome this deficiency. The quality of contact won’t always be there, meaning we’re definitely going to see some persistent problems with weak grounders, etc. to the left side, but I didn’t visualize Gonzalez as a pure fastball-hitter.
Where I do agree with Justin is Gonzalez’s inability to walk is really going to hinder his overall impact. He has to show that he can lay off pitches to actually get good pitches to hit. Justin threw out names like Tim Anderson and Eddie Rosario for hitters who impact games without drawing walks, and I agree with him that neither guy is a realistic comp because both of their hit tools are better. I’ve tried a similar exercise in terms of identifying a comp, and the name that I keep coming back to is Franmil Reyes. Reyes definitely walks more than Gonzalez does, and he may prove to have more playable power, but most everything else, whether it’s the body or the slugger mentality, rings true. Reyes would be something like a 45/50 OFP at this stage of his career. I feel better about sticking a 40 OFP on Gonzalez today, but there’s upside for more if he can prove he’s capable of getting his bat on the baseball in the big leagues.
Update: Gonzalez was called up by the Cleveland Guardians on May 26th, shortly after this blurb was written.
Brewer Hicklen, CF Kansas City Royals
Date Seen: May 11
Let’s get this out of the way: Brewer Hicklen has a penchant for striking out. He was leading the International League on the day that I saw him. Hicklen is a 26-year-old, former seventh round pick of the Royals, and he’s largely been a one-level-per-year prospect since being drafted in 2017. He’s now in Triple-A, recording strikeouts, stealing bases, and showing some extra-base power.
Hicklen looks like a big leaguer. He’s a legitimate 6’2” and strong throughout. He has impressive shoulders and forearms, and that physicality carries over into the batter’s box. Hicklen generates a ton of force when he swings the bat, and he’s capable of doing damage when he barrels the ball. He has a balanced stance that includes some knee bend. I went back and compared his stance to pre-shutdown film, and he’s slightly more crouched at the plate, but the bat position is about the same. He keeps the bat in front of his right shoulder and his left elbow dropped, and there’s a slight cock prior to him swinging. His bottom half is quiet as he takes a small step into the pitch. There’s no observable hitch in his swing, and the swing itself is pretty short and on a level plane. As noted above, he does have legitimate bat speed, but he also has very obvious swing-and-miss issues that aren’t associated with his approach.
Although he has a feel for the strike zone, a lot of Hicklen’s problems can be boiled down to pitch recognition and the way the swing works. Hicklen is able to decipher between fastballs and off-speed pitches, but it’s almost like it comes too late in the pitch, which creates a two-fold problem. He’s essentially late in the process of deciding to swing, and that produces instances where he’s either behind the ball or essentially unable to adjust the plane of the bat on time to make quality contact with the ball. He should have the bat speed to catch up to these pitches, but he was consistently under the ball ever so slightly when I saw him. He essentially needs to adjust his timing at the plate, but it sure seems like it’s less of a mechanical issue than it is a recognition issue. He’s already short to the ball, so I’m not entirely sure what needs to be done here to unlock and improve his bat-to-ball skills, but I do think there’s an opportunity here for him to make adjustments. It’s loud contact when he actually gets the bat on the ball.
There are a couple of things that really stood out as positives when I saw him. In terms of his offensive ability, I was not really concerned with his actual approach at the plate. I’ve highlighted the deficiencies in the swing, but he’s pretty patient in the box, and he’s willing to find a pitch to hit. Hicklen’s also one of the few guys that I actually observed in the field. He didn’t make a ton of plays out there, but he showed solid instincts on balls in the air, and his foot speed was plus. The arm looked at least average, and the entire package should project well in center field.
Hicklen did not make our Top 30 in the offseason, but he did garner some consideration. There are pretty clearly some big league tools here in terms of his speed, defensive ability, and raw power. I think he’s a pretty safe 30 or 35 OFP who has an obvious path to the big leagues as some kind of bench bat for a second-division team. He’s just going to need to overcome what is likely a 30 hit tool to get there, and my level of confidence in him doing that keeps him from a 40 OFP. There are some similarities here to former Royal Bubba Starling, who got a run with the Royals in 2019 and 2020. I should see him in Des Moines again in the middle of June.
Update: Hicklen was called up by the Kansas City Royals on May 26th, shortly after this blurb was written. He was subsequently demoted back to Omaha on May 30th.