Big names litter the box scores of the minor league playoffs, as players such as Reds pitching prospect Amir Garrett and 2015 N0. 1 overall pick Dansby Swanson continue to dominate. Swanson hit a walk-off single to send his Hillsboro squad to the Northwest Championship Series and Garrett pitched possibly his season’s best outing in the playoffs.
Big performances from high draft picks aren’t the only storyline from the 2015 draft class. Players taken later in the draft are putting up eyebrow-raising numbers as well. This draft was billed as the “Year of the Shortstop”, but outfielders taken in the later rounds are making early waves as well. Here is a non-exhaustive look at some sleeper outfielders taken in the 2015 draft.
LaMonte Wade, ninth round, Minnesota Twins
Here are two stat lines from recent Twins draft picks in the years they were drafted:
- Player A — .312 AVG/ .428 OBP/ .506 SLG/ 9 HR/ 12 SB/ 16.2 BB%/ 12.0 K%
- Player B — .248 AVG/ .344 OBP/ .448 SLG/ 5 HR/ 11 SB/ 10.1 BB% / 21.7 K%
One of the above players is Wade in 2015, the other is Twins rookie and No. 1 overall prospect Byron Buxton. Which one do you think is Buxton? If you guessed B, you’re right. Wade put up his stat line playing for the Elizabethton Twins of the Appalachian League—he also played four games for Single-A Cedar Rapids, but those stats weren’t included in the above stat line. Buxton put up his stat line above in 2012 splitting time between Elizabethton and the Gulf Coast League Twins. Wade put up better numbers than Buxton did at similar levels of the minors, but that doesn’t mean Wade is already a better prospect than Buxton was. Wade played in college at Maryland while Buxton was drafted out of high school, so it should come as no surprise Wade had a shorter learning curve. But the numbers are still impressive.
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Kevin Kaczmarski, ninth round, New York Mets
What hasn’t gone right for the Mets recently? Okay, there are definitely some issues that need resolved, but the Mets are experiencing a lot of good fortune the past few months, and the early returns say the Mets hit on Kaczmarski. He led the Appalachian League in hitting (.355), was sixth in OBP (.415) and slugging (.512) and was tied for third in runs (47) and second in stolen bases (20 in 29 attempts). Stay tuned.
Sam Hilliard, 15th round, Colorado Rockies
Hilliard is another prospect showing an impressive array of skills. Hilliard was sixth in the Pioneer League in OPS and was an efficient base stealer, swiping 12 bags in 16 attempts. His line of .306/.397/.532 with seven home runs is a promising start to his career.
Time will tell if these players and other like them—Ben Johnson of the Royals, Landon Lassiter of the White Sox and Brendon Sanger of the Angels all had impressive debuts as well—join higher-drafted prospects like Cornelius Randolph of the Phillies, Trent Clark of the Brewers and others as the best outfielders drafted in 2015, but their starts put them on the right track.
All stats from MiLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs.com