Other Installments in the 2024 Midseason Top 50:
40.) Jose Dicochea, RHSP
How Acquired: Drafted (Round 8, 2019)
Current Team: Stockton
2022 Midseason Rank: 37
2023 Midseason Rank: 20
It’s been a frustrating year for Dicochea, who has four pitches that can miss bats–a 92-96 mph fastball with run and carry, a big power curve, a changeup with good dive and velocity separation, and a harder breaking ball that has alternated between cutter and slider shape but is fairly sharp in either incarnation. All four garner swinging strikes at a 10% rate or better, and he’s thus had excellent outings in both Stockton and Lansing the last two years and has amassed a lot of strikeouts, but has been prone to inconsistency, likely stemming in part from his unorthodox long arm action. Still, Dicochea is a good athlete who flashes command and pitchability, and he’s just 23 and in that same missed-2020-plus-an-injury demographic as Franck De La Rosa, owing to 2021 Tommy John, so the lack of consistent pro reps does help account for his performance and offers hope for more growth. He’s a free agent after next season, so if things don’t come together for him as a starter soon, he’s a candidate for a bullpen move, which could get him progressing through the system quickly. If his velo were to spike in that role, look out.
39.) Clark Elliott, OF
How Acquired: Drafted (Round 2 supplemental, 2022)
Current Team: Stockton
2022 Midseason Rank: N/A
2023 Midseason Rank: 22
Elliott has probably taken Gunnar Hoglund’s old mantle as the most mysterious of the well-known A’s prospects; as such, this particular ranking is one of the ones that could easily look most off (in either direction) six weeks from now.
Elliott’s 2023 was odd and his 2024 has only just begun–he’ll presumably play his first non-rehab game of the season tonight after just being assigned to Stockton yesterday. Elliott’s first pro season saw him immediately establish himself as having one of the best approaches at the plate in the A’s system (maybe second to Shane McGuire’s), but the power stroke that produced 16 homers in his junior season in Michigan seemed to evaporate. Or, at least it did on the stat sheet (.276 SLG, 2 HR in 93 games between Stockton and Lansing). The compounding factor for me was that Elliott seemed to consistently hit the ball hard all year, including during his .193/.302/.247 performance in High-A…but the statline is so devoid of power that I can’t help but second-guess that visual evaluation somewhat, like perhaps the ball doesn’t come off the bat as well as it sounds, or something. There’s no other hitter in the system that I had that sort of big discrepancy on in 2023 except for Germán Ortíz, and Ortíz’s was smaller-sample and less of a huge difference. Overall, I do think it’s fair to say Elliott had a bunch of bad luck on balls in play and was significantly better than that Lansing statline indicates–there’s no question I watched him hit a ton of liners that were run down in the gaps–but it’s hard to say how much that explains away, since he obviously wasn’t clearing fences.
And Elliott is going to have to clear fences, since other than the tremendous approach and his solid feel for contact, he doesn’t have other plus tools. He’s a fine runner who should be able to play a good left field–he was rough there at times in 2023, particularly in reads and routes, but it seemed to me like that had more to do with him taking his struggles at the plate into the field than an inherent lack of ability out there, as his glove improved when his bat woke up a bit, late in the season. Nevertheless, the pre-draft notions of Elliott hanging in in center haven’t materialized, and that puts more pressure on his bat to be something beyond just an OBP source.
After opening 2024 on the IL, Elliott played in five games in Arizona and went 7-for-18–so, hey, good start–and the A’s actually did deploy him in center some, so it’ll be interesting to see if that continues in Stockton, which stands out as a conservative assignment (though I don’t want to read too much into that at the moment). Overall, I liked Elliott a lot more than the stats would lead one to believe last year, so if the college power comes into pro games, he’s right back in the starting outfield conversation, or at least as a good platoon guy. He does turn 24 in September, though, and obviously needs to get some pro momentum going quickly.
38.) Nathan Dettmer, RHSP
How Acquired: Drafted (Round 5, 2023)
Current Team: Stockton (7-day IL)
2022 Midseason Rank: N/A
2023 Midseason Rank: N/A
Dettmer was the A’s fifth-rounder last year out of Texas A&M. He was sent to Stockton this year and was just getting going when he hit the IL about a month ago. He has a ton of mechanical and arsenal similarities to J.T. Ginn, sitting 92-96 with heavy sink and run from an easy delivery, complementing the heater with a big sweepy slider and an inconsistent but promising changeup. Overall, he’s got the stuff, body type, and delivery to project as an innings-eating groundball machine at the back of a big league rotation in the Adrian Houser mold, and if that doesn’t work out, the sinker-slider combo could be interesting in a big league bullpen if Dettmer’s velo were to spike.
Dettmer wasn’t a consistent college performer and wasn’t off to a great start in Stockton, and the injury–which I don’t have specifics on–isn’t good news either, but he generally looked the part in his first few pro outings, and the A’s have a pretty good recent track record of getting more performance from pitchers who struggled in college (his college teammate Will Johnston being a very obvious example this year). He’s got plenty of time to find consistency in the pro game. We’ll hopefully have a much better idea of where he stands a year from now.
37.) Stevie Emanuels, RHP
How Acquired: Drafted (Round 5, 2020)
Current Team: Las Vegas (7-day IL)
2022 Midseason Rank: 46
2023 Midseason Rank: HM
Two years ago, Emanuels was in almost the exact same position Dicochea is in now. He was sitting 92-95 mph with three quality offspeed pitches as a starter, but he wasn’t getting consistent outs even after a midseason demotion to Stockton in his second full season of pro ball.
Moved to relief in 2023, however, it didn’t even take Emanuels 40 innings of regular-season pitching for him to climb three levels all the way up to Las Vegas. As a reliever, he’s sat in the 94-97 mph range, turned his slider into more of an upper-80s cutter, pushed the velocity on his hammer curve into the 79-82 range, and gone to a bit more of a splinker look with his changeup. It’s high-octane stuff across the board and an unusually deep pool of quality pitches for a reliever.
The reason Emanuels isn’t still starting with that arsenal, of course, is consistency, and that has dogged him in his initial exposure to Triple-A after his Midland tenure saw him throw more strikes than he ever had in A-ball. Vegas is admittedly a daunting place to pitch, and Emanuels has moved there quite quickly, so he’ll likely settle in further with time. He hit the IL last week, so it’s possible injury factored in to some extent as well (though if it did, it certainly wasn’t costing him velocity). If he can ever get to big-league-average command, he’ll be a high-leverage reliever. It’s more likely that some inconsistency remains but that Emanuels improves enough to be useful in the middle innings. He’s probably a year away from big league utility, assuming the injury doesn’t set him back in a meaningful way.
36.) Joelvis Del Rosario, RHP
How Acquired: Rule 5 Draft (Minor League phase), 2022
Current Team: Midland (7-day IL)
2022 Midseason Rank: N/A
2023 Midseason Rank: HM
When the A’s made Del Rosario the first pick in the Minor League phase of the 2022 Rule 5 draft, the statistical book on the former Pirates prospect was clear: he had a clean, easy delivery and three intriguing pitches. His fastball could reach the mid-90s, and both his slider and changeup had big bat-missing movement. The problem–and no doubt the reason he was available in the minor league Rule 5–was that none of the pitches actually worked well. Del Rosario commanded his fastball well, but it lacked bat-missing action; the offspeed pitches generated plenty of whiffs, but he struggled to command either. That remained the case in the first half of his first season in the A’s system, as Del Rosario showed promise in Lansing but battled inconsistency across the board. As such, he was one of the last cuts from last year’s midseason top 50.
Two things have happened since then. The first–the good one–is last July, Del Rosario came up with a harder variant of the slider that he commanded much better, and he started dominating. That got him to Midland as a 22-year-old, and though he got hit some in the Texas League, he generally showed he belonged as one of the younger pitchers in that circuit. The second is that he’s been on the 7-day IL for all of 2024, so he hasn’t gotten a chance to build on that breakout yet. The fastball shape and changeup command are still hurdles for Del Rosario to solve, but he’s got enough balance in his arsenal to still have a chance to start, and it’s also easy to see him being more of a fire-breather out of the bullpen–there were reports of outings last summer where he’d flash 98-mph velocity, up from his typical 92-95, and perhaps that would become the norm in a relief role. Del Rosario is a free agent after this season unless he’s added to the 40-man. If he is able to return this year and pitches well in the Midland rotation, that’ll be a tough decision for the A’s front office.
35.) Ramón Landaéta, C
How Acquired: International amateur free agent (2023, Venezuela)
Current Team: DSL A’s
2022 Midseason Rank: N/A
2023 Midseason Rank: 50
Landaéta is one of only two position players in the A’s organization who hasn’t seen the field this year (the other being Drew Swift), but in his case, that’s not saying much, since the DSL season only started a week ago. He’s not listed on the IL, so one can hope he’s just in a day-to-day situation health-wise.
Landaéta didn’t get a ton of time last year either–his season ended early with an injury (hopefully not the same one!)–but in the time he was on the field, he looked the part of a possible everyday catcher, showing present strength (and likely more to come), some feel for the barrel, and more defensive polish than reports indicated when he signed for $750,000 earlier in the year.
Landaéta’s overall physicality really stands out, particularly when one considers he was the second-youngest player in the organization last year. That means the missed time (and repeating the DSL) doesn’t really put him behind schedule at all, as he only just turned 18. There are six catchers currently on the ACL A’s roster, so he’d have a hard time finding playing time up there anyway, and it’s probably better for his development to be an everyday player in the DSL again when healthy.
Still, one can only push a DSL player so high up the list without a real sense of the player being truly special, and Landaéta has plenty of rough edges in his game to smooth out before he’s going to be penciled in to future A’s lineups. He expanded the zone frequently last year, had some trouble with spin, and is going to have to be more consistent in all phases of the game, especially on defense. But I keep coming back to the physicality here, and despite his rawness and youth, Landaéta brought his talents into games last year. There may well be ups and downs along the way, but he’s a player who is going to have intriguing upside for a long time.
34.) Jefferson Jean, RHSP
How Acquired: International amateur free agent (2022, Dominican Republic)
Current Team: Stockton
2022 Midseason Rank: N/A
2023 Midseason Rank: 38
Jean is a member of a very select club: pitchers who spent the majority of their age-19 seasons at the A’s Low-A affiliate. Jesús Zambrano in 2016 is the last one; last year Tzu-Chen Sha became the first teenage pitcher since Zambrano to throw even 15 innings of full-season ball in the A’s system (Steven Echavarria has managed to do this at age 18 this year, too. Neat trend!). For Jean, his rise is especially impressive, as he needed just 17 ⅔ innings across the DSL and ACL for the A’s to deem him ready for the California League. Granted, those 17 ⅔ frames were spread over three seasons–Jean missed most of the 2023 ACL season with an injury and got one start there this season before moving up–but the fact that he’s trod the path from the DSL to Stockton with so few steps relative to everyone else on that path is still very notable.
And it makes sense, because Jean has been heralded for his velocity from the moment he signed–he was said to be touching triple digits in his first pro summer at age 17 (albeit in one-inning stints). He doesn’t throw that hard as a starter now, but he sits around 95, touches 97, and still has projection remaining.
Other than lighting up radar guns, everything about Jean is a work in progress. His fastball shape is fairly nondescript and he’s struggling to miss bats with it, his slider has tended to be a bit of a soft roller, and he’s struggled to get his changeup to show good action and velocity separation. He also began his career with an extremely long arm action and a whirlwind of a delivery that looked unrepeatable.
The good news is that progress is happening. Everything looks a bit better than it did in 2023, and much better than amateur video of Jean. The slider is a little crisper, the changeup has better differentiation, and though his arm action is still quite long, the overall pacing and momentum of his delivery is much cleaner.
Seeing as he’s still shy of 40 pro innings, that progress is good enough to keep Jean’s projection trending upward for now, even though the “thrower” label has yet to be shed here. As he’s ahead of the game age-wise, he’s still playing catch-up right now, and it may be a couple of years before we really see Jean put up good numbers. It’s probably most likely that he ends up moving to power relief at some point, but since the nature of his progress has been across-the-board and he has so few innings, it certainly makes sense for the A’s to start him for a while longer and see if he can continue growing into that role.
33.) Michel Otañez, RHRP
How Acquired: Minor league free agent, 2023
Current Team: Oakland
2022 Midseason Rank: N/A
2023 Midseason Rank: N/A
Just called up to the bigs, Otañez was the hardest thrower in the A’s system this season. He regularly crests 100 mph and sits around 99, maxing out at 102.7 mph in his Vegas stint, where he was as effective as any Aviators pitcher can reasonably hope to be.
Otañez is almost 27 and has been in the minors since 2016, mostly with the Mets. He was on and off prospect lists for years as a classic hard thrower who struggled to throw strikes, and he’s still got a high-effort grip-and-rip approach that’s never going to be described as “precise.” But he’s also not just a one-trick pony out there: his fastball is actually more of a weak-contact sinker than a bat-misser, and his hard, diving slider then becomes the pitch that hitters frequently come up empty on.
Otañez will have to prove he can throw enough strikes in the majors, but he’s had relatively good stretches on that front in recent years. His two-pitch arsenal is formidable enough that he really just needs 35-grade command to get by, and there’s reason to think he can deliver that more often than not going forward. If there are any further late-career gains beyond that threshold that he can make, then Otañez can make a big impact in late relief.
32.) Euribiel Ángeles, INF
How Acquired: Trade (from San Diego with Adrián Martínez for Sean Manaea and Aaron Holiday, 2022)
Current Team: Lansing
2022 Midseason Rank: 20
2023 Midseason Rank: 30
The scouting report on Ángeles remains basically the same: he’s got ridiculous bat-to-ball ability, enabled by elite hand-eye coordination and strong flexibility in the box. He’s also a sure-handed defender with a great internal clock that helps him make up for less-than-exceptional range and arm strength at the shortstop position, where he can hang in (or play plus defense at second). He’s also a muscular presence with plus bat speed who can bring in-game power to all fields…if he’s not playing himself out of at-bats by chasing wildly.
The bad news is that on Year 3 of his time in the A’s system, Ángeles is still in High-A, where he even ended the 2021 season in the Padres organization. The good news is that he only just turned 22, he’s having his best season there, and he’s only had a half-season of real struggles there (the first half of 2023, itself largely a BABIP mirage). 2024 has brought some improvements in his selectivity–though he’s still by no means a patient hitter–and that’s helped him bring his power into games more consistently. He’s ready for Midland and probably has been for a while.
Ángeles still has the full toolset of an everyday major league middle infielder, but his focus and body language in the field has tended to be inconsistent throughout his A’s organization tenure. He’s looked more consistently engaged in 2024 but still has lapses at times. Though he’s definitely made more progress than his statlines superficially show, it’s still been fairly slow progress, all told, and it’s probably best to project Ángeles as a utility infielder at this point, albeit one who will still bring moments of real electricity.
31.) Logan Davidson, INF
How Acquired: Drafted (Round 1, 2019)
Current Team: Las Vegas (7-day IL)
2022 Midseason Rank: 29
2023 Midseason Rank: 19
It’s been a circuitous route to the threshold of the big leagues for this former first-round pick, now 26, and Davidson is currently on the injured list and has a struck out six times as often as he’s walked in Las Vegas this year. But he’s also a player who’s showed the ability to do almost anything on the baseball field.
Davidson switch-hits, he’s played everywhere but catcher and center field defensively, he has a long history of walking a lot more than he has in 2024, he struck out just 22% of the time in Vegas last season, and he’s hit the ball an average of 89.1 mph in Triple-A across the past two seasons. That all makes him an ideal candidate to have a utility role in the big leagues pretty much immediately and hold it down effectively for several years to come.
Really, the remaining issue here–other than health, for the moment–is that Davidson has had career-long tendencies to heat up and cool off, and his identity at the plate seems to change with those streaks. For instance, when he first got to Vegas last year, he made more contact than he ever had but didn’t clear fences; now in 2024, he’s slugged a lot more but seen the strikeout-to-walk backslide. There are times in the past when he’s been very passive and others where he’s been overaggressive. As he reaches his athletic peak, Davidson is going to have to find a more consistent identity to fully stick at the big league level and not be an itinerant one-month wonder. But he’s ready to try now and does too many things well to not eventually figure things out enough to be a valuable bench player if he’s given big-league opportunities.
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