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Nathaniel Stoltz

A's Midseason Top 50 Prospects: #40-31

After going through prospects #50-41 yesterday, we continue through the midseason top 50 today with the next ten players on the list.


#40.) Pedro Santos, RHSP


Santos, a Cuban signee in 2018, was throwing very hard last year (often in the 96-97 range with good extension), but had Tommy John over the offseason and won’t be back until Opening Day 2023 at the earliest. He missed a lot of bats in Stockton in 2021 but struggled to throw strikes consistently and will likely be moved to the bullpen sooner rather than later when he returns to game action. He still has room to add strength, and the velocity and carry to the fastball should be formidable in short stints. Santos’ changeup and big, slow curveball showed flashes last season, but neither were particularly consistent, and he’ll need to add power to the curve for it to play as a bat-missing weapon. He did make some progress on his command as the season progressed and has a shot to make more gains as he gets a better feel for his delivery.


#39.) Cody Thomas, OF


A former starting quarterback at the University of Oklahoma–Baker Mayfield eventually beat him out in his sophomore season–Thomas has always been behind the developmental curve on the diamond due to his two-sport background, but he’d probably have exhausted his rookie eligibility by now had an Achilles injury not kept him out of the 2022 season so far. He’s a big, power-hitting corner outfielder with good athleticism, enough that the A’s toyed with him in center field some last season. He slugged .665 in Las Vegas last season, struck out about 31% of the time, and is the oldest player on this list at age 27. The upside here is that Thomas is a slightly better version of Seth Brown, though the strikeouts and injury setback create risk.


#38.) Austin Beck, OF


Beck has the best outfield arm in the system and should be able to stick in center, and though a lot of evaluators gave up on him during his 2019-21 struggles at the High-A level, he still has bigtime bat speed and overhauled his previously over-aggressive approach this season with good results. His initial few games in Double-A haven’t inspired a ton of confidence statistically (16/1 K/BB), but he’s taken better at-bats and hit the ball harder this year than his surface-level stats would indicate and is–despite his seemingly endless time at the High-A level–the youngest Midland position player not named Jordan Diaz or Zack Gelof. Beck’s progress this season has been encouraging, but he still has work to do with his barrel accuracy to get his hit tool to big-league viability. If he can make that final improvement, the rest of the tools will play.


#37.) Jose Dicochea, RHSP


Dicochea is still recovering from Tommy John surgery last season and is the owner of a career ERA over 10 in 36 low-minors innings, but the 2019 8th-rounder has made big progress smoothing out his complex high school mechanics–in particular his wonky, segmented arm action–and he showed big stuff in Stockton early last season, sitting in the mid-90s and flashing a hammer overhand curve. Since he was a high school draftee, he’s still just 21 despite his developmental hurdles and is a strong candidate to break out when hopefully back to a full workload in 2023. He’ll need a changeup to start, is quite early in his developmental trajectory, and hasn’t made it back to game action yet, so I’m staying pretty conservative with his ranking overall, but there’s significant upside here.


#36.) Junior Perez, OF


Acquired from the Padres in exchange for Jorge Mateo in 2020, Perez at the time was coming off an electric season in the Arizona League as a 17-year-old, but he’s had two frustrating seasons in Stockton since, struggling with strikeouts. His long, rotational swing has confined Perez to an extreme pull tendency and struggles to adjust to high fastballs. But he’s still just 20 and has some Ramon Laureano elements to his game, a power/speed combo with an all-out approach on the bases and in the field. Perez has a bigger frame than Laureano and might end up in right field defensively, but he should be plus out there. He’s recently changed his setup at the plate, starting his hands higher, in a way that lessens the bat wrap in his swing and gives him a better chance to make contact. As with anybody who strikes out 35%+ of the time, there’s a chance Perez never puts it together at the plate, but he’s too tooled up to be lower than this.


#35.) Mason Miller, RHSP


Admittedly, I’m not working off a ton of information on Miller: the A’s third-round pick in 2021 has only six pro innings and has missed all of 2022 with a muscle strain. I’m including him on the list despite my “no ACL/DSL guys” statement up front because there’s at least a fair bit of video on him (the same applies to Gunnar Hoglund, who we’ll get to later on in the list). The organization hopes to have him back on the mound in August. He’s touched 100 mph and showed a solid slider when healthy, but he’s also nearing his 24th birthday with hardly any pro experience, and most evaluators think the fastball and his fairly high-effort delivery are going to be fast-tracked to the bullpen next season. There’s obvious upside here if Miller can stay healthy, but he’s very much an unknown quantity right now. Like Dicochea, he could move up the list quickly if he returns to health with his pre-injury stuff intact.


#34.) Brady Feigl, RHSP


Feigl has been on the shelf for all of 2022 with an undisclosed injury; sensing a theme in this part of the list? Unlike Dicochea, Santos, and Miller, though, Feigl has pitched in the upper minors and was Midland’s best starter for much of 2021; like Thomas, the 26-year-old may well have been in Oakland right now had he been healthy this season. Before the injury, Feigl looked like a low-variance innings-eating back-of-the-rotation starter, sitting 92-94 mph with sink from an easy delivery and working heavily off his sharp breaking stuff. Dane Dunning is a good physical comp–right down to the glasses!–and Feigl’s arsenal is similar, with a bit of extra velocity and a less effective changeup. Dunning’s is the sort of role he projects toward, and he has a good shot to establish himself there in 2023…if healthy.


#33.) Devin Foyle, OF


Foyle is currently hurt too; he’s been on the shelf since May 14. He’s mostly a left fielder defensively and is just a career .235/.336/.366 hitter, and he’s already 25, so he might be the prospect whose placement seems most undeservedly high on the list. But I really believe in Foyle’s ability to hit right-handed pitchers. He has excellent plate coverage, a solid approach, and good leverage in his swing, and he’s improved offensively every season of his career. He’s an above-average defender in left who can steal the occasional base and has some history playing center. He struggles with his fellow lefties and will likely always be confined to a Seth Smith/Matt Joyce platoon role, but when he returns, he has a shot to be in that sort of role within a few months.


#32.) Robert Puason, INF


Famously signed for $5.1 million in 2019, Puason is still a teenager, but he’s hit just .203/.267/.277 in Stockton across 153 games the last two seasons, finally getting demoted to the ACL last week to try to reset. The tools–notably bat speed, raw power, a big arm, and decent speed and agility–are still there, but Puason hasn’t figured out a consistent approach at the plate or in the field yet. His plate approach has been haphazard and he’s gotten behind in counts too often; even as he cut his strikeout rate some this season, that mostly seems to have just turned some of the Ks into weak grounders. Now that he’s in the ACL, the primary goal for Puason has to be to slow the game down on both sides of the ball. There’s a long list of stuff to work on here: pitch identification, swing plane, and defensive footwork are at the top of the list. But he’s just 19 and remains very physically talented, so Puason will have a lot of additional opportunities to harness that talent.


#31.) Adam Oller, RHSP


Oller is the oldest player on this list other than Thomas (he’s nine days younger), and he’s struggled in Oakland this year, allowing 23 earned runs in as many innings. He’s been much more successful in Vegas, managing to limit opponents to a .261 slugging percentage in the PCL launching pad, and his three offspeed offerings–a cutter, curve, and change that all come in with unusual power–have missed bats relatively well at both levels. His fastball has solid velocity, sitting 92-96 mph, but it’s fairly low-spin and has been hit around in Oakland despite fairly judicious usage. His command has also taken a step back this season after several strong strike-throwing years in the Mets system. It’s easy to write Oller off as past his prospect expiration date with these setbacks, but guys like Chris Bassitt and Paul Blackburn were still struggling to break through at age 27 too, and they have some broad comparison to Oller. Like those guys, Oller has a broad arsenal and strong performance history, enough to make me think the issues this year may well resolve in 2023. Like most of the other older (say, 25+) players on the list, he’s not especially high-upside, likely fitting in as a back-of-the-rotation starter or bulk reliever, but as he’s only a few days of service time away from losing his prospect eligibility, he might be just a single adjustment away from slotting into that functional big league role.

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