Prospect Roundtable: Which First Half Performance Gives You Most Concern?

With half of the minor league season in the books, we’re recapping the first half of the season this week on Prospect Roundtable.

In the other article, we looked at which player made the biggest jump in our rankings in the first half.

This article explores the opposite, looking at the player who gave us the most concern going forward.

As usual, all picks were submitted without knowledge of anyone else’s picks. Ryan Palencer’s picks were limited to Indianapolis prospects.

JOHN DREKER: Matt Fraizer, OF

We did an article early in the year about concerns after the first month. My pick was Matt Fraizer, who got off to a rough start while repeating Double-A, with a huge strikeout rate. One month is too short of a time to pass judgement on someone who looked so great last year. It was chalked up to a slow start and just something to keep an eye on. Now just over halfway into the season, Fraizer is sitting there with a .621 OPS in his first 61 games, exactly 100 points below the league average OPS, coming from someone who is average age for the league. He had a decent month of May, but the poor results returned again in June. His strikeout rate is much higher than we saw in Altoona last year, and the walk rate is much lower. I’m not writing him off as a prospect, but there aren’t a lot of big league success stories that start with a player struggling in his second stint in Double-A at 24 years old. It’s important to remember that we are talking about someone who I rated tenth in a strong system, and the average votes of all top prospect sources had him as the #8 prospect in the system. He has not come close to that hype, and he would need an incredible finish to get close to that spot by the end of the season, even with some top prospects ahead of him graduating.

WILBUR MILLER: Nick Gonzales, 2B

There are a lot of candidates here. Quite a few are players who looked like very good prospects coming into the season and haven’t looked like prospects at all this year: Matt Fraizer, Tahnaj Thomas, Rodolfo Nolasco, Connor Scott, Maikol Escotto. If we’re talking about “concern,” though, I’ll go with Nick Gonzales. His carrying tool is supposed to be the hit tool. He didn’t swing and miss much in college, but he did in his debut last year. College stats obviously don’t translate directly to pro stats, but Gonzales’ strikeout rate went from 13% in his collegiate career to 27% in 2021. This year it’s 33%, and his OPS is down 200 points from last year, raising the concern that his stats last year were heavily dependent on the ballpark at Greensboro. He didn’t really improve this year before getting hurt; his OPS was .748 in April and .738 in May. Not only that, but his BB:K ratio got considerably worse, from 14:25 to 11:36. The injuries have to be at least a bit of a concern, too, considering that a supposedly minor injury at the end of May this year may keep him out for half or more of the season. Gonzales needs to be a plus hitter with at least reasonable power to be a major league regular, and as a supposedly advanced college hitter, he shouldn’t have an extended development track. Hopefully, he’ll get back into action soon.

ANTHONY MURPHY: Mason Martin, 1B

I don’t think there is anyone generating nearly as much concern for me as Mason Martin. We all knew strikeouts were a concern, and they would always limit his value, but I’m not sure we saw this coming. Martin struck out nearly 50% of the time in June and batted just .100. Even when he was off to his hot start, it was really an all-or-nothing approach at the plate. Even with the strikeouts, it was always assumed Martin could be someone you could at least platoon at the major league level this season. Without trying to sound too drastic with it, some sort of change is going to be needed if he even wants to get that shot in the majors.

RYAN PALENCER: Mason Martin, 1B

Mason Martin was absolutely ripping the cover off the ball in April. He was getting social media screams from the mountain tops for time in Pittsburgh. While strikeouts were still an issue, the power numbers were off the chart. In fact, through May 25, Martin had just completed hitting home runs and three straight games. This put his season total at 10. Since that point, Martin has only hit two more home runs for the season. As the campaign went along, the lack of consistent contact caught up to Martin. He has struck out nearly 45% of the time in June. Martin has had a difficult time making contact with pitches featuring vertical movement. He has been working on some swing adjustments, but that is still a work in progress as well. There’s still plenty of time to turn his season around, but things are not moving in the right direction. However, as Martin showed in April, he’s just one month away from righting the ship.

Mason Martin Working on Adjustments to Shorten Swing

TIM WILLIAMS: Nick Gonzales, 2B

The Pirates drafted Nick Gonzales with the first pick of Ben Cherington’s tenure as General Manager. His profile at the time of the draft was a pure hitter who had plus contact skills. The loftier expectations for him had him winning future batting titles. Gonzales has not come close to that hit profile in his time in pro ball. His 2021 numbers were heavily influenced by a hitter-friendly home park. His numbers on the road were worse. In his move to Double-A, he has seen his strikeout rate jump to 32.8%, with just a .247 average. This also comes with a very high BABIP of .374, which he probably won’t repeat in the higher levels. So, the lack of hitting we’re seeing will probably get worse, unless the strikeouts improve. What we’ve seen from Gonzales is nowhere near the player that was promised on draft day in 2020. Gonzales reminds me a lot of Kevin Newman — another no-power middle infielder who was highly regarded for a hit tool that didn’t show up in pro ball. Gonzales has more power than Newman, but not enough to make up for his current lack of hitting. You could dream about Gonzales developing into a starter with improved hitting skills. However, once you separate yourself from that former draft position, it’s hard to argue that the 23-year-old Gonzales should be given any preferential treatment over someone like Ji-Hwan Bae — who is a year younger in Triple-A, and putting up the type of numbers you hope for from Gonzales. It’s possible that Gonzales could turn things around and be a starter in the majors one day, but at this point he’s been passed by a few other internal options.