San Diego Padres: Scouting Report on 1B Josh Naylor
Scouting Report
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Body/Basics
Naylor is a lefty hitting and throwing first baseman. He’s listed at 6′ and 225 pounds, and he could even be more hefty than that, looking to have added some good and bad weight both since being drafted.
Hitting
Naylor stands straight in the box and has little movement as the pitch is delivered. He shows a good ability to move his hands to adjust to pitch location, but from my viewing, he struggles with recognizing the edges of the zone, often chasing balls outside of the zone, even if he did have the ability to contact those balls and foul them off.
His ability to adjust his hands leads me to think that there could be more contact ability than he’s show this year so far. In all seriousness, I see an ability to be a legit .300 hitter with his ability to adjust to various different pitches in various locations. Pitch recognition was not an issue, and though he did struggle at times to put the best of the bat on the ball each time, any teenager in full-season ball simply contacting all pitches the way he does is a notable thing. I’d probably put a future 60 or even 65 grade on his hit tool.
The power to me seems a bit different. While it’s not hard to see why folks would believe there could be great power in that swing, I’m not sure I agree with the heights to which it’s praised. He has a very natural powerful contact to the ball, but the best swings he gets on balls tend to be more gap balls and line drive balls that end up doubles rather than balls with carry. He certainly has the body frame to hit home runs, but I’m curious about him having to adjust his swing to make it happen.
Base Running/Fielding
It’s not a surprise that Naylor is not much of a base stealer. The issue I worry about with him is that he seems to really struggle running the bases as well. That’s a big issue going forward as his instincts on balls hit in the outfield are quite poor right now.
Naylor is a more adept fielder than one might think, but he’s not likely to make anyone forget Mark Texeira anytime soon. He is, however, quite solid at digging balls from the dirt, and I was surprised how well he worked arm side, doing well getting to balls between his location and the line. Once again, I have trouble being definite about his ability in the field translating up the line due to the questionable nature of them.
Video
Next: Future outlook