A's Midseason Top 50 Prospects: #30-21

Today, we're continuing our journey through my midseason A's top prospect rankings. For previous installments, see #50-41 and #40-31.

#30.) Hogan Harris, LHSP

It’s hard to know where to slot Harris on this list, for a multitude of reasons. One is his durability woes, as he missed about a calendar year after signing in 2018, had Tommy John in 2020, and already has two separate IL stints this season. He’s 25 and still under 100 professional innings, only 12 ⅔ of which are in the upper minors. Second is the oddity of his approach, as he slows his arm and lower body down on both his changeup and curveball, normally a pitch-tipping nightmare. But Harris has been absolutely unhittable this season, riding a scoreless streak that’s now crossed the 20-inning mark and allowing just nine hits in 25 ⅔ frames between Lansing and Midland, none of them for extra bases.

More significantly, the mid-90s velocity that Harris hadn’t displayed since college has returned, as he’s now working in the 93-96 mph with good carry; the pitch plays well up in the zone and misses bats. The changeup and curve come in seemingly intentionally slow, giving them extreme velocity separation (~17 mph for the change and ~23 for the curve) and making hitters look foolish when they guess the wrong speed. Both offspeed pitches have good movement, with the changeup running away from righties and the curve featuring gigantic, Zito-esque shape. Harris has managed to make this extreme speed-variance approach work because of his extreme crossfire delivery, which seems to hide the ball and the different effort levels well, but it’s not clear how well that is going to keep fooling hitters at higher levels, especially in the big leagues where advance scouting and video analysis might find a way to help hitters diagnose what’s coming. But there’s no obvious reason he couldn’t abandon this approach for a more conventional style if that were to happen, and the change and curve would still have chances to be effective thrown six mph faster. Durability is still a massive concern here, but unlike many of the pitchers in the 31-50 range, Harris is healthy now, and he’s wielding good stuff, showing solid command, and using a unique approach that might have some interesting right-tail outcomes attached. If he stays healthy and effective for the rest of the season, Harris could easily shoot into the top 20, and he’s closer to getting a shot in Oakland than most people think.

#29.) Logan Davidson, INF

Davidson still hasn’t translated the tantalizing tools that got him drafted in the first round in 2019 into bigtime minor league performance, though he’s made some strides with his swing and approach in 2022, abandoning last year’s overly-passive look and staying back on the ball significantly better. That’s brought his power into games much more frequently, and the switch-hitter has crushed lefties after posting just a .339 OPS against them last season. He’s not a burner and has battled inconsistency on defense, but he has an above-average arm and good hands, allowing him to hang in at shortstop and show plus defense at third base. He’s just a .224 career hitter, though, and though he’s looked a lot better this year, that’s still just added up to an 87 wRC+. Davidson’s wide skill base makes him fairly likely to carve out a bench infielder role even if his feel for hitting doesn’t improve a whole lot more, but there’s still an outside chance the offensive package clicks together in the next couple of years and puts him back toward everyday player consideration.

#28.) Colin Peluse, RHSP

Peluse famously picked up a ton of velocity over the pandemic layoff in 2020 and came into 2021 blowing hitters away with his 93-96 mph fastball, which features explosive life up and in on righties. He got to Midland late last season and had initial success, consistently presenting an uncomfortable look by pounding hitters with the heat in that up-and-armside location. But this year, he’s fallen more into the 92-94 mph range, and that’s made a huge impact on this sort of fastball-heavy approach. Peluse’s slider and changeup are fine but unexceptional, and though he does have above-average command, this version of him lacks the ability to miss bats in the zone. There’s still a chance the extra tick on the heater comes back, in which case he’d move back toward the mid-teens ranking most analysts had him at before the season, but it’s going to have to if Peluse is going to start, barring an unexpected jump in his offspeed pitch quality. Still, he has a real shot to get back toward the mid-90s in the bullpen, and his bulldog approach would fit well there.

#27.) Kyle Virbitsky, RHSP

Virbitsky is a 17th-round pick who has a 5.50 ERA in Low-A at age 23, but focusing on those factors ignores his strong peripheral statistics (76/19 K/BB) and excellent run in High-A last year in an emergency post-draft assignment (3.38 ERA, 2.96 FIP). More importantly, though, Virbitsky has imposing size (6’7” 235), impressive command for that size, and a fairly deep and impressive arsenal of pitches. He’s touched 96 mph and works 93-94 with good carry and extension, and he has two strong and well-differentiated breaking pitches in his sharp slider and big power curve. The changeup is his fourth pitch, but it’s also usable. There’s some thought that Virbitsky would play best as a power reliever, but there’s enough arsenal depth and command here that starting isn’t out of the question, and there’s considerable upside in that role–Nick Pivetta works as a comp in a number of ways.

#26.) Blake Beers, RHSP

Beers was drafted two rounds after Virbitsky last year, but I imagine his name is less of a surprise here, as he immediately emerged as Stockton’s ace this year and has pitched solidly in Lansing as well. He’s already about to turn 24, but Beers’ ferocious roundhouse slider is probably the best in the system, he sits 92-94 mph, and he’s thrown a lot of strikes so far. He’s working hard on his changeup and also has a curveball he doesn’t use much; one of them is going to have to come around for him to start. Beers is also an extreme flyball guy. His slider-heavy approach and tenacity in coming right after hitters would play well in the bullpen, but the tertiary pitches and command have enough promise to consider Beers a possible starter.

#25.) Jordan Diaz, 1B

This might be the ranking on the list that will surprise readers the most at how low it is, and I definitely see how Diaz could end up outstripping it–he’s a plus hitter with solid power to all fields, and those are incredibly hard to find, especially at age 21. But he’s also a mediocre defensive first baseman who has averaged 3.37 pitches per plate appearance this season; only one major league hitter is below that. Diaz’s natural feel for the barrel and very aggressive approach means he rarely strikes out, but he’s probably going to have to hit at least around .280 to profile as a starting first baseman in the big leagues. There’s a real chance he could do that–that one MLB hitter who takes shorter plate appearances than Diaz is Luis Robert, who has a career .294/.338/.484 triple-slash–but it’s also the sort of thing that is hard to fully trust until it actually happens. Like Harris, Diaz is a tough player to evaluate, in this case because he has such clearly-defined strengths and weaknesses, and it’s hard to know which will end up being the defining features of his profile in four years. But he’s hitting well in Midland at age 21, which is all that could possibly be asked of him right now, and he might be getting a chance in Oakland by this time next year.

#24.) Brayan Buelvas, OF

Buelvas has been on the shelf with a leg injury for the better part of two months; prior to that, he was hitting poorly in Lansing, albeit deflated by a .202 BABIP. Like Diaz, he’s been very young for his levels–he just turned 20 in June–but unlike Diaz, his profile is defined more by being solid at everything. He’s not a huge runner but handles center field reasonably well, he’s not a huge physical presence but has 20 homers in 125 full-season games, and isn’t an elite bat-to-ball guy but doesn’t have a strikeout problem. That gives a lot of options and a lot of time for any of these solid traits to morph into carrying skills, but Buelvas hasn’t hit for average in full-season ball yet despite his solid contact rates and can’t quite be put in the high-floor bucket until he shows more consistency there. He looked to be making some two-strike adjustments in his last couple of games before the injury, but it’s too soon to evaluate whether those make a real difference in his profile. He’s trending in a bench outfield direction, but has time to unlock some Laureano-esque possibilities; first, though, he has to establish the hit tool.

#23.) Jorge Juan, RHSP

Juan showed ridiculous stuff last season, touching 99 mph, snapping off a hard curve that flashed plus-plus with wipeout action, and even working in a changeup that would sometimes fall off the table even at 90-92. He’s 6’8”, and though that gives him exciting leverage to the plate, it also has come with command troubles typical of pitchers that gigantic, as Juan has struggled to get over his front side and repeat his delivery consistently. He was making enough progress on that front to begin to convince evaluators he could start, but he’s now been hurt with various maladies, most notably an elbow sprain, for about a year now. That makes it even more likely that Juan ends up as a reliever, but he has obviously massive upside in that role if the stuff is back whenever he returns to the mound.

#22.) Michael Guldberg, OF

Guldberg is basically a more proven version of Buelvas: a good runner who will stick in center and who has enough power to keep pitchers honest. He’s also been out of commission since May, and durability is starting to become a concern here, as Guldberg has only managed to play 67 games in his 1 ½ pro seasons. But his defensive acumen, solid batting eye, and good feel for contact give Guldberg a high floor, and he has everyday upside if the power shows up in games consistently.

#21.) Grant Holman, RHSP

Holman got off to a big start in Lansing this year before being shut down with a shoulder injury in May. He’s been up to 96 mph with massive sink and was proving almost impossible to lift this season, and he’s showed advanced command for a 21-year-old former two-way player, especially one with such a gigantic frame. Holman’s secondary stuff–a slider, change, and occasional curveball–is a work in progress, and he doesn’t have any bigtime bat-missers in that mix. The slider and change show flashes, though, and there’s room to project more given Holman’s relatively low amount of mound experience. The upside here looks something like Alex Cobb: a dependable fourth starter who largely pitches to contact but does so fairly effectively.