Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen several of baseball’s top prospects get the call up to the big leagues. A few weeks Julio Urias was recalled by the Dodgers, today Pirates starter Jameson Taillon will make his second start of the season and on Thursday, Blake Snell will pitch for the Rays. It remains to be seen if Taillon and Snell will remain up for good or be sent back down after their starts, but it’s fun to watch these young prospects play. Who else can we expect to see this summer? Find out here!
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Hitting Prospects
Trea Turner can’t believe that Danny Espinosa is playing so well either.
Trea Turner, 2B-Washington Nationals. Of course… Danny Espinoza has been horrible all season, but when it finally comes close to the time when we should expect to see prospect, Trea Turner get called up and possibly replace him in the lineup, Espinoza starts heating up. While Espinoza may be playing well, Turner struggled this week in AAA as he went six for 31 with three runs and a stolen base. I still think we see Turner shortly, but he and Espinoza are both worth monitoring over the next few weeks.
AJ Reed, 1B-Houston Astros. AJ Reed had a “so-so” week for the AAA Fresno Grizzlies, as he went five for 20 (.250) with a home run and three RBIs last week. The Astros have lost some ground this past week and as of today they stand almost ten games back of division leader, Texas. I’m sure they would like to get a spark in their lineup, so hopefully he gets his stroke going sooner rather than later. If he does, we could possibly see him in the next month or so.
Orlando Arcia, SS-Milwaukee Brewers. It wasn’t a great week for Brewers’ prospect, Orlando Arcia as he lost almost 15 points off his season long batting average, when he went three for 23 this past week with no home runs, no RBIs, no stolen bases and only one run. Ouch! He’s not making a very strong case that he will be an upgrade over red-hot Jonathon Villar at the moment. I still think that we see Arcia later this summer, but I don’t think that the Brewers have him in their short term plans right now.
Alex Bregman, SS-Houston Astros. Arcia may have been ice cold, but Astros’ prospect, Alex Bregman was on fire as he hit in every game he played in this week for Double-A Corpus Christi. In all, he went 11 for 29 with a home run and seven RBIs. On the season, he’s now hitting .313 with 13 home runs and 42 RBIs and has stated himself that he’s ready for the big leagues. If he keeps hitting like this, he’s going to make it hard for the Astros to keep him down. He isn’t going to replace current shortstop, Carlos Correa in the lineup, but that doesn’t mean they can’t find somewhere else for him to play, so Alex Bregman is definitely someone to keep your eye on over the next month or two.
Pitching Propects
Tyler Glasnow, SP-Pittsburgh Pirates. It looks like Jameson Taillon is getting the call first, but I don’t think that fellow rookie Tyler Glasnow will be far behind, as the Pirates are getting bit by the injury bug at the moment and could use all hands on deck in Pittsburgh. Glasnow had two starts this week and pitched a total of ten innings, giving up only one earned run, while striking out 14 batters. He did walk seven, but he’s coming along nicely and hasn’t given up more than two earned runs in last six starts. He’s a nice strikeout pitcher and should be fun to watch when he arrives in Pittsburgh and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw him in the very near future.
K batta batta, K batta, K batta batta…swing!!! That seems to be working as Alex Reyes is striking out a ton of batters in AAA.
Alex Reyes, SP-St. Louis Cardinals. Along with Glasnow, another prospect that will be very exciting to watch will be Alex Reyes of the Cardinals. So far this season, Reyes has pitched a little over 21 innings in five games and has struck out a whopping 39 batters. He has an ERA of 3.32 on the season and after sitting the first 50 games of the season with a suspension, the Cards would probably like to see him get some more work in AAA before we see him on the major league roster. I think it may be August before we see him, but I have a feeling that this guy is going to make it very hard for St. Louis to wait quite that long.
Lucas Giolito, SP-Washington Nationals. Lucas Giolito struggled at the beginning of the season, but he’s turning his season around in a hurry. This week he only had one start, but he pitched seven innings of shut out baseball, striking out 12 and walking only one batter. Over his last four starts, he’s pitched at least six innings, never given up more than one earned run and struck out an average of eight batters per contest. He’s one of my favorite prospects in baseball and it looks like he’s getting into major league mode. The Nationals still need to find a place in the rotation for him to call home, so we may not see him over the next few weeks, but if you have a spot to stash a pitcher, I encourage you to consider making Giolito that person.
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