This week’s installment of Knocking Down the Door features five 1st Round picks from the 2012 and 2013 drafts, three of which were recently named to Baseball America’s Midseason Top 100 Prospect list.
Jose Berrios, SP, Minnesota Twins (Triple-A Rochester)
When we last discussed Jose Berrios here three weeks ago, he had just tossed eight shutout innings in his 10th Triple-A start of the season while a couple of Twins’ starters were hanging on to rotation spots by the skin of their teeth.
Since, Berrios has allowed just four earned runs in 27.2 innings with seven walks and 27 strikeouts in four starts. In 11 of his 14 starts, the 22-year-old has allowed two earned runs or less. He’s allowed four hits or less in 10 of those starts.
In the meantime, the Twins’ rotation hasn’t been horrible over the past few weeks. But they’re not exactly inspiring increased ticket sales or excitement for what the future holds.
Now that general manager Terry Ryan has been fired, interim general manager Rob Antony’s first line of business should be to add a very talented young pitcher and future staff ace to one of the most pedestrian rotations in baseball.
J.P. Crawford, SS, Philadelphia Phillies (Triple-A Lehigh Valley)
Expectations for any highly-touted shortstop prospect will be immense thanks to Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor and Corey Seager. All were top prospects. All became MLB superstars almost immediately. That pressure could soon fall on J.P. Crawford, the No. 3 overall prospect in Baseball America’s recently-released Midseason Top 100 and No. 1 shortstop ahead of Trea Turner, Dansby Swanson and Alex Bregman.
After a slow start to his Triple-A career, the 21-year-old Crawford has been on fire with a .314 batting average (44-for-140), nine doubles, one triple and three homers since June 11th. He’s also sporting a nifty 52-to-53 walk-to-strikeout ratio between Double-A and Triple-A in 2016, which I’m pretty sure will translate to much better than what Freddy Galvis is currently doing with the Phillies (13 walks, 73 strikeouts).
While there is a benefit of starting Crawford’s service time clock a few weeks into the 2017 season instead of anytime this season—assuming he is in the Major Leagues for good, he would be under team control through 2023 instead of 2022—the expectations and pressure would be minimal with his team no longer in playoff contention. Call him up now and he could have nearly a half-season of big league experience under his belt by next April.
David Dahl, OF, Colorado Rockies (Triple-A Albuquerque)
Regardless of whether the Rockies trade Charlie Blackmon or Carlos Gonzalez, David Dahl will very likely be in the Rockies’ starting lineup in the near future. At least he deserves to be, even if it means that Gerardo Parra will be a very expensive fourth outfielder once he returns from the disabled list.
The 22-year-old Dahl has been able to put the 2015 season, in which he lost his spleen in an outfield collision, behind him. After posting an .867 OPS with 13 homers and 16 stolen bases for Double-A Hartford, Dahl has turned it up a few notches since a promotion to Triple-A. In 10 games, the left-handed hitting center fielder is 21-for-41 with five homers, four doubles and one triple.
Dahl also has six walks and five strikeouts, which is encouraging, even in such a small sample size, considering that he had a 39-to-84 walk-to-strikeout ratio in Double-A. He also walked 11 times with 81 strikeouts at the same level last season, so he seems to be making adjustments as he closes in on the big leagues.
Mitch Haniger, OF, Arizona Diamondbacks (Triple-A Reno)
The window might be very small with Chris Owings and David Peralta close to returning from the disabled list, but Mitch Haniger has earned a chance to show the Diamondbacks what he can do before he’s buried on their outfield depth chart for good.
Acquired from the Brewers along with Futures Game selection Anthony Banda in the July 2014 trade for Gerardo Parra, the 25-year-old Haniger had put up solid numbers across the board in High-A Visalia and Double-A Mobile. Now with Triple-A Reno, he’s making it difficult for the D’backs to ignore him much longer.
With Michael Bourn, Brandon Drury and Yasmany Tomas doing very little in the competition for the lone outfield spot that won’t be filled by Owings and Peralta in the near future, Haniger has put together a .367/.432/.719 slash line while playing all three outfield spots in 35 Triple-A games. Hitter-friendly league or not, that kind of production should open some eyes within the organization.
D.J. Peterson, 1B, Seattle Mariners (Triple-A Tacoma)
Adam Lind‘s disappointing season has opened up an opportunity for D.J. Peterson and he’s taking full advantage. The No. 12 overall pick in the 2013 draft has homered in back-to-back games for Tacoma, giving him five in 15 games since being promoted from Double-A Jackson, where he posted an .805 OPS with 11 homers and 21 doubles in 73 games.
The 24-year-old Peterson was primarily a third baseman until last season, when he started more games at first base. Not coincidentally, Kyle Seager had signed a long-term extension during the previous offseason so any chance of Peterson ever being the Mariners third baseman were pretty much eliminated. His chances of ever making it to the big leagues at all also suffered. After all, there’s no future for a first baseman who posts a .636 OPS in Double-A.
But the right-handed batter has bounce back nicely in 2016 and could find himself in Seattle — particularly if the club isn’t able to turn things around in the next two weeks.
“Knocking Down the Door” is a weekly feature that identifies minor leaguers who are making a case for a big league promotion.
Bluejays look good but they need a Postseason push.What about Bluejays get Carlos Beltran and Andre Miller from the Yankees for a Marcus stroman package
What about no.
I think they can get Beltran but not chapman. But imagine the top of the order: Bautista,Donaldson, Beltran, Encarnacion…
Giants get: Nick Markakis and Arodys Vizcaino
Braves Get: Christian Arroyo
With Pence going down again and needing additional bullpen help for playoffs, might be a good fit for both teams.
Something to the effect of
Rangers get Teheran, Markakis, Olivera
Braves get back ibanez, de leon, trevino, payano.
If atlantas asking price for teheran is so high why not see if teams will clear them of these bad committments.
They did it with kimbrel and upton.
Braves have cleared enough money that their focus is to maximize the return for Teheran, not to accept terrible returns like that one.
They have zero interest in that incredibly weak package and would prefer to keep Teheran to pitch like an ace, keep Markakis to lead as a veteran presence in the OF, and hope that Olivera isn’t terrible in his return from suspension.
A package from Texas starts at Gallo and goes from there if they acquire Teheran as there is no reason to deal him without a blowaway package in return.
While spending $11 million the next 2 years on markakis whos batting .252/.331/.359. Its not going to get better.
And spending roughly $60 million on a known female abuser. He wasnt impressive for the braves last year hitting .253/.310/.405. Certainly doesnt look like he’s worth $60 million.
Theyd be saving $82 million over the next 5 years by shedding both contracts.
Nobody is giving atlanta what it wants for teheran.
Save money on the committments by trading teheran and lock up key pieces for the future with the cash saved.
Also teheran is not an ace. Hes a solid #2. Hes sporting an xfip of 4.09. Thats not ace material.
Dodgers are paying roughly 30m of Oliveras salary as a signing bonus, so the Braves obligation is only 30mil.
I’m amazed at how uninformed your comment was. Like actually astounded.
Part of why the braves are paying Markakis is his consistently high hits and walks, and part is his leadership. Ownership is perfectly fine with his production leadership at his current salary.
First off, it’s only around 24 million or so left at this point. Second off, his off the field issues are quite horrible, but if he produces on the field a la Chapman in NYC, all will be forgiven and forgotten.
Did you forget to read where they don’t need to or want to shed the money? And it’s far less than that ridiculously high number you guessed up in your head too.
If they don’t give ATL the haul they want, then ATL will keep our ace, a true #2, who is 100% pitching like an ace.
We have no key pieces for the future to lock up at this point. Our pitching is undergoing growing pains, so no one knows their values yet. Our hitting is in AA, so not locking them up yet. Our core is Freddie and Julio, both already on long-term contracts.
He’s a high2/low1 whether you like it or not. His xfip means nothing at this point because he has continually outperformed ERA estimators like FIP and xFIP throughout his career.
Each point you had was wrong. Wow
You keep saying “ownership”
They’re owned by Liberty Media. Liberty Media and the Atlanta Braves have come out repeatedly to state Liberty is hands off in all baseball operation decisions.
So you’re misinformed, “ownership” is not happy with Nicks leadership and production. Ownership doesn’t care about the Braves player personnel.
You do realize that Pence, even after being taken out of a game during his rehab assignment, is still set to return as soon as next Sunday and should join the Giants on their next homestand so Markakis makes no sense for the Giants whatsoever at this point.
Doubt atlanta would want to do that.
If anything they should package teheran and markakis and olivera together.
It drives down teheran but to get rid of olivera and markakis completely off the books might be worth it in the long run if the braves want to look for help to compete in 2017.
You can still get a decent package but losing markakis and olivera committments seem to make more sense honestly.
No reason at all to do that as that money isn’t really an issue after they cleared out BJ and CJ from the payroll.
I’m happy for him, but really pleasantly surprised at how much DJ Peterson has turned it around in the Mariners organization. His younger brother Dustin Peterson I still think will be the better overall player even if not quite as powerful.
Amen to Berrios getting into the big league rotation. Let him get the rookie jitters beat out of him so he can get on with his career…