Twins, Rockies, Mets Own Sleeper Outfielders

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.