The below reports arise from my viewing of the West Michigan @ Lansing series on milb.tv from April 11-16. Generally speaking, the reports of the Lansing players come from a much wider base of experience watching them, as I do a ton of watching, charting, and discussing A’s minor league games, but I’ve also watched a couple of these West Michigan players in the past as they’re repeating the level.
Jace Jung, 2B
At first blush, Jung’s somewhat blocky medium build and his odd, Chuck Knoblauch-esque setup at the plate give the impression of some odd late-round small-school wonder rather than a prospect with premium pedigree. The moment he loads his hands and begins his swing, though, his status as the twelfth overall pick last year makes sense, as Jung’s violent, whippy cut produced a bevy of barrels throughout this particular series. He keeps the bat in the zone for a long time, but he gets it there quickly, easily able to turn around premium velocity and backspin it into the right-center field gap. He also controls the strike zone well and shows good pitch and spin recognition skills, enabling him to get plenty of pitches to drive. He projects to amass large double, homer, and walk totals all the way up the Tigers chain.
Jung’s value is going to be mostly tied up in his bat, as he’s a fundamentally sound second baseman but not an exceptional athlete on the bases or in the field. He’s never been a significant stolen base threat and projects as an adequate, fringe-average defender at second or third base. That puts plenty of pressure on the offensive skillset to be well-rounded for Jung to justify his draft status, and though he has the tools to potentially do that, he does have a pull-oriented flyball-heavy approach at present that leaves him somewhat vulnerable to well-located offspeeds away from him and limits his ability to carry strong BABIP figures despite how hard he hits the ball. He seems a savvy enough hitter to possibly adjust and smooth some of those things out over time. The comparison that comes to mind is Max Muncy–the big leaguer, of course, not his Lugnuts opponent this series–and how well Jung can make adjustments will determine whether he’ll be subject to some of Muncy’s extreme performance volatility or carve out a more consistent career.
Izaac Pacheco, 3B
Even at just 20, Pacheco strikes a notably strapping, imposing presence in the box, and his performance this series certainly backed up those vibes, as he blasted multiple tape-measure homers with ease. I couldn’t help but think back to my days watching Joey Gallo in Hickory a decade ago when watching Pacheco in the box, with his long arms and forceful lofted swing. Like a young Gallo, Pacheco is a surprisingly fluid athlete given his size and brawn, even playing some shortstop last year, and though guys of this size at this age often end up at first base, he may be able to stay over at the hot corner or potentially play a solid right field for years to come.
Of course, also like a young Gallo, such a skillset and approach comes with a lot of in-zone whiffing, more due to general barrel accuracy inconsistency than any particularly problematic pitch- or location-specific challenges. Pacheco’s control of the zone looked fairly loose this series, as he showed a tendency to expand particularly against high heat, and he’ll have to do a better job bisecting the zone, working the count in his favor, and sitting on specific offerings if he’s going to get to all of this massive raw power in games against more advanced competition. There’s considerable risk in a profile like this, but the potential for defensive value helps Pacheco’s case, as does his ability to hang in effectively as a 20-year-old at this level.
Ben Malgeri, OF
An 18th-round pick in 2021, Malgeri has been an impressive do-it-all presence in the Whitecaps lineup over the last two seasons, playing a hustle-driven center field with terrific reads and instincts, covering the plate with a short, controlled swing, but swinging hard enough to run into some power to all fields. Malgeri stays balanced at the plate and doesn’t get fooled easily, showing a good two-strike approach and being a constant pest in taking an enormous number of HBPs and outthinking Midwest League pitchers. He’s also an above-average runner.
Promoted to Double-A shortly after this particular series, Malgeri will no doubt continue to do all the little things to help his teams win as he ascends through the minor leagues, though his bat speed, selectivity, and barrel control will all get serious stress tests in the upper minors. As smart of a hitter as he is, I’ve seen him get beaten fairly consistently over the past two years (when the Whitecaps have played Lansing) by high-end stuff in the strike zone, and I wonder how much of his offensive explosion in April is a product of him outthinking the weaker, less experienced two-thirds of Midwest League pitchers his second time through the league. Still, Malgeri’s power uptick adds to his already-fairly broad skillset, and he clearly works hard to maximize everything he brings to a team, so it wouldn’t be too surprising to see him continue to find ways to outperform perceptions of his pedigree.
Roberto Campos, OF
The youngest player on the field this series, the 19-year-old Cuban outfielder showed how he was able to advance to the High-A level so rapidly. Campos is wiry-strong and will likely get to significantly more over-the-fence power in time as he fills out his big frame, as he flashes the ability to get significant leverage from his long arms in his violent, rotational swing. His long, gliding outfield strides give him defensive value as well, though it’s possible that he’ll eventually move from his current home in center over to right field, where he has enough arm to slot in comfortably.
The force and rotational elements in Campos’ swing do make him quite vulnerable to breaking stuff away from him at present, and though he didn’t look to be a total free swinger in this series, he didn’t display the pitch recognition and zone control ability to mitigate those challenges in a notable way. He also has hit a surprisingly high number of balls on the ground in his career–often over 50%–despite the potential for lift here, so that’s going to need to be unlocked for him to reach his potential. Like Pacheco, there thus need to be some refinements if Campos is to take his exciting skillset further up the chain with success, but ample time for those refinements to come.
Danny Serretti, SS
Picked five rounds after Jung in last year’s draft, Serretti is also a bulked-up middle infielder with a good power-and-patience combination for his position despite an unusual starting point of his swing. A senior sign from UNC, Serretti showed good hands in the field, enough power that he homered to dead center in driving rain, and the ability to work deep counts. He’s overall had a very strong start to his pro career–.323/.443/.506 since signing, as I write this–and is doing everything you’d like to see from a mid-round senior sign to quickly legitimize his prospect status.
Serretti will likely advance to the upper minors at some point this season and has the fundamental soundness to hang in against upper-minors pitching very soon. The question will be what position he fits at cleanly. He’s not a flashy defender at short and didn’t show a particularly strong arm this series, and he may only be an average 2B/3B defender long term. That puts more pressure on his bat, where there are also some rough edges. Though his pitch recognition skills are solid and he fights off tough pitches and makes pitchers work, he also seemed to have at-bat-to-at-bat inconsistency in his approach, oscillating between more passive and more aggressive looks, contributing to a K/BB ratio thus far (18/6) that falls below the visual evaluation of his contact and plate discipline skills. Finally, his power is mostly strength-based, and his swing has some choppiness to it from his high-handed setup, leading to a fair number of grounders and popups that cut into his ability to clear fences. It’s early in his pro career, though, and overall, things have obviously worked well so far. Serretti has a high floor and projects to at least get within striking distance of the big leagues, and his switch-hitting ability and wide skill base offer a number of possible good utility outcomes.
Eliezer Alfonzo, C
Alfonzo is a longtime veteran of the Tigers system who has yet to reach the upper minors and has a sub-.600 OPS as I write this, but he caught my eye this series because he’s a switch-hitting catcher with a microscopic strikeout rate (5% as of May 2!) who hit an absolute moonshot in one of the contests this series. Hitting the ball 450 feet or so might be an anomalous occurrence for the career .300/.365/.387 hitter, but his performances the past couple of years do indicate that fence-clearing blasts are becoming more frequent. He’s also a sure-handed defender (just 8 PB in 188 career games caught…how many six-year minor league catchers can boast single-digit career PB totals?!) with a solid arm and big league bloodlines who is a lock to stick at the position. He didn’t play a lot this series, so I don’t have a particularly full impression of him, but Alfonzo looks the part of an interesting backup catcher a few years down the line.
Jorge Juan, RHP
A gigantic presence on the mound at 6’9” and 263 pounds, Juan’s got stuff that is nearly as imposing as his stature. A starter through the 2022 season who briefly was added to the 40-man in 2021, Juan has been moved to relief this year to expedite his path to the majors and has been nearly unhittable. His delivery–necessarily simple due to his size, with almost a Tyson Ross-esque short stride onto a stiff landing leg–features a very high release point that works well for his vertically-oriented arsenal, which has been mostly pared down to just two pitches now that he’s a reliever. His mid-90s fastball jumps on hitters quickly, and though Juan historically has had some stretches where he struggles to get over his front side and starts sailing the heaters up and armside, he’s been displaying surprisingly capable east-west command of the pitch more and more often as his career progresses.
However, the money pitch has been his power curve, arriving in the low 80s and typically commanded better than the fastball. Juan isn’t shy about doubling and tripling up on the pitch, ably landing it for strikes or burying it as needed, and it plays against hitters from both sides of the plate. It’s generated a CSW% of well over 50% on heavy usage, descending with uncommon violence from Juan’s mountainous release point. Extremely difficult for A-ball opponents to touch, Juan looks like a potential high-leverage reliever, perhaps as soon as a year from now, though he’ll first need to prove that the command can hold up reasonably well in the upper minors, where his margin of error won’t be quite as gigantic as he is.
Caeden Trenkle, OF
Trenkle has been a nice surprise with the Lugnuts in the early going, cutting down on the excessive chasing tendencies of his brief pro debut and employing a very polished approach that is leading to consistent deep counts and strong on-base numbers. The former Oklahoma State Cowboy and ninth-round pick is looking more and more like a defensive fit in center field, with smooth actions and improving reads, and his short swing packs enough punch for him to potentially get to double-digit homer power down the line.
Trenkle has a wide collection of skills, though he hasn’t yet established a clear carrying tool beyond perhaps the defense in center, as he’s a solid baserunner but not a high-volume-steal burner. That points his future toward a bench/platoon outfield role in the Gregor Blanco mold if things go well, barring a huge unexpected explosion of power on contact or the development of premium bat-to-ball ability. Trenkle will have to prove he can be consistent with in-zone contact, as he’s struggled to cover the outer third of the plate consistently and occasionally gets out in front on offspeed pitches, leading to a higher strikeout rate thus far than you’d want to see from a player who has optimized his approach and is more of a line drive hitter. Still, he’s looked like a great find in last season’s draft and is making encouraging strides in a tough hitting environment.
Joelvis Del Rosario, RHP
Del Rosario was a minor league Rule 5 pick from the Pirates organization this past offseason, and though minor league R5 selections are typically not seen as notable prospects, Del Rosario has stood out early in the season because of his viable three-pitch mix and smooth, compact delivery. He pounds the strike zone with his 93-94 mph four-seamer, though he’ll also show an unusually choked-down two-seamer at times to change looks. His low-80s slider and mid-80s changeup also flash huge bat-missing movement, with the slider having classic turbo sweeper action and the changeup seeming to freeze and fade as it crosses the plate. The latter pitch in particular is a plus offering when he locates it.
Del Rosario has typically had strong walk numbers in his minor league career, a testament to his athleticism, simple motion, and ability to pound the zone with his fastballs. In concert with the two bat-missing offspeed pitches, the ingredients for the diminutive righty to become a useful big league pitcher, perhaps even a starter, are there. However, each of the pitches come up short in one area or other at present. The four-seamer and especially the sinker don’t have quite the velocity or shape to miss bats at an above-average level, and Del Rosario struggles to land the offspeed pitches for strikes and sometimes even competitive balls. As a result, he has to rely on a very traditional pattern of establishing the fastball for strikes before turning to the offspeeds ahead in the count for chases, and this can get predictable, as he was tagged for three homers late in his start this particular series. If the command of the offspeed pitches can ever approach that of his heat, Del Rosario will emerge on the prospect scene. Still just 22 and holding his own at this level despite his rough edges, he’s an interesting arm to keep an eye on.
Tyler Baum, RHP
It surprised some that the A’s didn’t give up on Baum completely after the 2019 2nd-rounder’s next three years were destroyed by the terrible combination of the pandemic pause and the yips. Last year, his numbers in Low-A almost had to be seen to be believed–55 runs allowed in 24 innings, with 46 walks, 9 HBPs, 23 wild pitches, and even 34 hits allowed. In my pitch tracking that season, I tracked 141 of Baum’s offerings on video, and I coded almost as many as waste pitches way outside of the zone (43) as in the zone (48).
Not only did the A’s not give up on Baum, though, they promoted him to High-A this season, perhaps spurred by a surprisingly strong finish last year (9 K, 2 BB in his final five innings, with all five outings featuring >50% strikes) and presumably some continuation of that better form into the offseason and spring. Sure enough, Baum seems to have broken the curse, at least for now, as even though he struggled to find the zone somewhat in this particular series, he had far fewer bad, wasted misses and has overall been quite solid to start the year (thus far, I’ve got him at 41 pitches in-zone and just 10 wastes out of 96). He’s still got a lot going on in his delivery, which features huge, almost Lincecum-esque extension with a pinwheeling high arm slot, so he’s still having some challenges staying mechanically consistent with that motion, but thus far, he’s clearly out of the 20-command woods. He threw plenty of strikes with something similar to his current motion in college and his short-season pro debut in 2019, so the delivery itself isn’t historically tied to wildness despite its violence.
Nice as his improvement is to see, it wouldn’t resuscitate Baum’s prospectdom unless his old second-round stuff was intact, and it seems to be. The delivery is deceptive, the fastball runs into the mid-90s with carry and jumps on hitters, and he’s been able to get to his offspeed pitches more frequently now that he’s not constantly behind in counts. Impressively, he struck Jung out to close out one game with three swinging strikes, all on his late-diving changeup, and his hard curve has had its moments of sharpness. He’s 25, but the stuff is there, and if he’s truly beyond the extreme command woes, there could be a Riley Pint sort of path forward here over the next couple of seasons.