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While I understand the appeals of Mathews and Doyle as prospects, and have to admit I tend to have a bit of a bias for hitters over pitchers compared to consensus, I had Bernal pretty safely as my #2 prospect coming into this exercise. Either way, we all knew it was going to be close in this range, in fact I expected more Joshua Baez support in the top 4 than we’ve seen. I’m sticking with Bernal at 4 and will be excited to hopefully vote for someone new at #5.
I’ll take Joshua Baez and his combined 41 homers between Memphis and the Lou at number 4. It’s very close between Baez and Bernal. There are 4 or 5 close in my estimation which speaks of the depth of our system.
#4 Bernal. I’m not sold, but he is good and kind of backs into it.
I had Bernal and Baez behind Franklin earlier, but they both broke in and were not bested by ML pitching which is a big box to check. Baez gets pulled for a UT so the D is truly bad. A butt on the ground catcher is never going to be good back there, but maybe no worse than everybody else’s.
Josh Baez is a fine left fielder. He is better than Fermine and perhaps Torres. Baez is a poor center fielder. There is a huge gap between can’t play center over large sample size and is a poor fielder.
Both DRS and OAA thought Baez was really bad in a 29 game sample. Defensive stats need a season to stabilize, but he also didn’t look great to the eye test nor coaches if they pull him for a defensive replacement.
I have Clarke and Roby behind Hjerpe, but they both look fantastic when they are on the mound.
Also, I am considering moving Peete up to 9 or 10 due to strong performance and potential fast track. Lack of power is a concern as he moves toward facing better pitching and defenders.
Should we consider age, coaching, and experience when evaluating Baez. Are we considering future performance in addition to his debut?
Baez has speed, athleticism, and a strong arm. MLB coaching daily and work on improving reads and routes aren’t five-year plans. We often see improvement rapidly.I have Baez in my top 10. Probably most of us do. There is a tight group and we are just picking at reasons to jockey one before another. They all have strengths and risk factors which people prioritize a little differently. All these young players will come into better focus over the next year.
If Walker can be turned into a serviceable defender I am sure Baez can as well. The question is will he be able to consistently handle big league pitching.
@gscottar,I agree. And Baez should be an easier project on the defensive front than Walker was.
I tend to disagree about Baez vs Walker. I think Walker was an OK minor league third baseman, was shifted to outfield in AA and then beamed up to MLB before he learned the new position. The type of ‘Project” Walker was is completely different from the situation with Baez.
I completely echo Bling here. Baez has always been an outfielder. He should continue to get a little better. But with Walker, he had no experience ever playing outfield so his improvement level was always going to be a lot quickly, especially given his natural tools.
In Baez’s defense though. If I were guessing, he probably played LF the least of the 3 outfield positions. Maybe we will see solid improvement in his reads with reps. He has all the physical tools where he should be able to get to better than average, but he’s clearly well behind that now.
Leonardo Bernal at #4 for me, please.
As for Josh Baez’ defense, JNevel is absolutely correct that Josh didn’t play much left field at all in the minors, starting fewer than 50 games there in his entire farmhand tenure. But for me, I’m less concerned about Baez’ glovework than I am his plate discipline. I feel like one part Nolan Gorman & one part Tyler O’Neill is Josh Baez’ likeliest outcome as a hitter, and that’s not enough in an outfield corner to make me vote for him yet. Baez’ MLB debut at Wrigley was incredibly thrilling, but a 33-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio is scarifying.
With a commanding lead and not many, if any left to check in, we will call voting early so I can hit the road here from beautiful, autumnal northern PA. Your TCN Community #4 prospect is Leo Bernal, C.
1. Rainiel Rodriguez, C
2. Quinn Mathews, LHP
3. Liam Doyle, LHP
4. Leo Bernal, CVoting is now open for the #5 prospect. Voting will close at 12 PM CT/1 PM ET on Wednesday, October 14th.
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