Mar 14, 2017; Fort Myers, FL, USA; Toronto Blue Jays right fielder Anthony Alford (30) slides into third base as he triples and Boston Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval (48) attempted the tag him out during the second inning at JetBlue Park. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
The Toronto Blue Jays called up outfielder Anthony Alford on Friday. What kind of player is he, and what can Jays fans expect?
Player Profile
The Toronto Blue Jays selected Anthony Alford in the third round of the 2012 draft out of high school in Mississippi. A strong commitment to playing college football led to many teams passing on Alford, in spite of his immense raw tools.
Alford started his college football career at Southern Mississippi, ending up at the University of Mississippi before he finally decided to concentrate full-time on baseball in 2015.
He opened his draft season with a brief five-game audition with the Blue Jays GCL team. He returned there in 2013 for a six-game period, each just a bit of game action before he had to get to fall practice for football. Combined between the two seasons, he hit .200/.340/.375 with two doubles, a triple, a home run and six stolen bases over 50 plate appearances, with a 16 percent walk rate and 20 percent strikeout rate.
In 2014, Alford made the move to the advanced rookie Appalachian League, and the Blue Jays got him to their Midwest League team in Lansing after just nine games of advanced rookie ball. In total, he had 60 plate appearances, hitting .259/.333/.389 with two home runs and five stolen bases, posting an 8.33 percent walk rate and a 35 percent strikeout rate.
After the 2014 football season, Alford knew that he was making the move to full-time baseball in 2015, and the Blue Jays had him attend the Australian League over the winter, where Alford hit .298/.398/.421 with three home runs and seven stolen bases in 36 games, posting an 11.18 percent walk rate and 29.61 percent strikeout rate.
Alford’s first full season was a mixed bag of bright spots and raw tools still needing refinement as he opened with low-A Lansing in the Midwest League and finished the year with Dunedin in the high-A Florida State League.
His totals on the year were .298/.398/.421 with 25 doubles, seven triples, four home runs and 27 stolen bases, posting a 13.76 percent walk rate and a 22.38 percent strikeout rate.
His big first season got notice by the national prospect rankers as well. Alford jumped all the way to the #25 overall prospect in Baseball America’s offseason list, #42 in MLB Pipeline’s list and #44 in Baseball Prospectus’ list.
Alford spent his entire 2016 in Dunedin, due to a mix of injury and poor performance. His final line on the season was .236/.344/.378 with nine home runs and 18 stolen bases. He also posted a 13.22 percent walk rate and 29.18 percent strikeout rate.
Toronto sent Alford to the Arizona Fall League, where he performed much better, hitting .253/.349/.440 over 23 games with three home runs and eight stolen bases, posting a 12.79 percent walk rate and 27.91 percent strikeout rate.
His struggles backed off his rankings, though he still made the three national lists, ranking #59 with BA, #70 with Pipeline and #93 with BA coming into the 2017 season.
Alford was ranked #59 in the Call to the Pen Top 125 in January with one of the highest variances in opinion from scouts I talked to of any player on the list.
In 2017, Alford has done nothing but rake. With AA New Hampshire, he’s hit .325/.411/.455, posting three home runs and nine stolen bases, with an 11.35 percent walk rate and 17.02 percent strikeout rate in 33 games before his promotion.
Alford still looks like he could play defensive back for an SEC school, with a muscular build that easily makes him the most intimidating guy getting off the team bus, in spite of his 6’1″, 215-pound frame not being incredibly large.
Hitting
Contact (55) – The variation on Alford is really only on one tool, and this is the one. Alford has an incredibly quick bat that gets through the zone very quickly once he enters the zone.
However, Alford does have a bit of hand “noise” pre-swing and an inconsistent path on the follow through that has cleaned up significantly this season.
The pre-swing hand movement will lead a scout that sees Alford on a 0-4 day where he misses some “gettable” fastballs or breaking pitches that should be balls he could handle to think that he could have some significant struggles, especially in his initial movement to a new level.
Power (55) – While Alford currently does not have a tremendous amount of loft to his swing, he generates tremendous loud contact when he makes contact, smoking the ball even when he hits it on the ground. Certainly a bit of swing adjustment could allow Alford to tap into more over-the-fence power.
However, many guys have struggled to find their contact ability after adjusting their swing path in that manner, so Alford may want to stick to pounding the gaps and seeing a few balls leave the park, profiling more as a guy who could have a few 20 home run seasons but typically sits with 10-15 home runs and 30+ doubles and 5-10 triples.
Eye (60) – For a guy who has been raw since day one in many other aspects of the game, strike zone recognition has always been the strength of Alford’s game, posting a double-digit walk rate in every season but one of his split seasons between football and baseball.
Alford has shown some variance in his pitch recognition skills, which is what will determine if the strikeout rate will continue to stay fairly low as he moves up to the major leagues. This season’s sub-20 percent rate is a big positive for the progress of his recognition.
In one of my views on Alford, he took on Yankees prospect Justus Sheffield, facing a biting slider, and he laid off two out of zone and went with another, hitting it the opposite way for a single to right field. That level of progress would be a huge thing for him.
Base Running/Fielding
Speed (70) – Alford’s speed was limited last season by a knee injury, but he’s shown in the outfield that his top end speed is back 100%. Where he may have lost even a hair of a step is in first-step quickness, but even then, that takes him from a likely 75 and sure 70 to a sure 65 that can play up to 70.
In the games I saw of him, Alford really utilized his speed very well, both defensively and on the bases. His base running skills are incredibly elite, as he has very good instincts for when to take an extra base on a gap hit or to go first to third on an outfield single.
Defense (60) – The speed of Alford is best used in his range in center field. Even without that elite first step, he quickly accesses top speed, able to track down balls with ease.
The biggest knock on his defense has been some instinct/route issues in center field, but he seems to have spent a lot of time in the Arizona Fall League and spring training working on his routes to balls and has improved there. Obviously that’s a small sample size of improvement, but a 65 could be justified with the improvements that he’s made with his routes on balls.
Arm (50) – While Alford has tremendous athleticism, he does not have an elite arm. One area of notable improvement this season dating back to work he did in the Arizona Fall League is his positioning on catches in order to best position himself for throws.
This has allowed Alford to play up his accuracy in his throws significantly, and he’s even shifted some to right field this season to cover in late innings when an accurate throw would be vital and left-handed hitters were due up.
MLB Player Comp
Physically, Alford’s build and natural athleticism make him a very difficult player to find a comp for, but in skills and general size measurements, the guy who strikes me as the upside play for Alford is Andrew McCutchen.
The other comparables I was considering for Alford were Dexter Fowler in a baseball skills comp (but Fowler is 6’5″ and lean, so the physical attributes don’t really match up) and George Springer in the freakish athletically strong build comp (though Alford’s offensive game is flipped from Springer’s, who possesses fringe-plus speed and plus to plus-plus power at a similar build).
McCutchen, however, has the similar build (5’10”, 190) and offensive skill set to what Alford brings to the table. Whether Alford will ever reach the success that McCutchen achieved at his best is up for debate, but the base skills are certainly there.
Alford played in his first major league game Friday night, going 0-2 with a strikeout. Alford’s excellent zone judgement should serve him well in an adjustment to the major leagues, but it’s likely a big factor into his call up was his presence already on the team’s 40-man roster.
Point being that Alford may be up to replace Kevin Pillar during his suspension as outfielder Darrell Ceciliani was injured, leaving a need in the outfield. When Pillar returns, it’s very feasible that Alford is returned to New Hampshire to continue his development.
Alford has a unique blend of tools along with elite athleticism that should allow him to be a very exciting player to watch at the plate and in the field once he is up for good, however.
