Minor League Baseball League Top 10 Prospects: Carolina League
10. Josh Ockimey, 1B, Boston Red Sox
Originally drafted in the 5th round of the 2014 draft, Ockimey had two rough seasons to open his minor league career. He made some changes in fall instructionals in 2015 and exploded in 2016, finally tapping into his enormous left-handed power.
Ockimey has an impressive amount of power in his swing, though he does have some significant load to his swing and struggles some with pitch recognition, though he’s tremendously improved his zone recognition. That is what has led to seeing Ockimey develop his walk rate to the point of walking nearly 100 times this season.
On the 2017 season, Ockimey played most of his season with Salem before a promotion for the last month of the season with AA Portland. With Salem, he hit .275/.388/.438 with 20 doubles, 2 triples, 11 home runs, and a 66/110 BB/K ratio over 349 at bats.
Ockimey is not going to play anywhere but first base defensively, but he’s really taken his contact skills to the level of being a quality power threat from the left side with an adjustment in his set up that has allowed him to hit anything within the strike zone and really working hard to become very skilled in strike zone recognition.
Ockimey will likely open 2018 with Portland, but he is a guy to follow as his impressive power could push him forward quickly in the organization.
9. Luis La O, 3B, Texas Rangers
Somehow flying under the radar this offseason was the Rangers’ signing of La O, a talented Cuban infielder with solid contact skills that left Cuba at age 22.
He missed two seasons of play, so the Rangers opened La O at Down East, and he hit .290/.334/.397 in his first exposure to minor league pitching. He showed an extremely quick bat through the zone and impressive ability to put bat to ball.
La O is limited by an average-at-best power tool and, while he has plus speed, he struggles with reading pitchers when attempting to steal a base, as evidenced by 11 steals in 21 attempts. However, his contact skills are impressive, and he can place the ball well into gaps and use his speed to generate doubles “power”.
Defensively, La O has been moved around the diamond quite a bit in Cuba, and he’s shown things to like at third, short, and second base. He’s got the arm to handle third and has excellent reactions, which would allow him to eventually play a plus third base. He would likely be an above-average second baseman as well once he worked on his footwork around the bag.
Many thought when he first defected that La O would be able to move quickly to the upper minors and likely be major league ready quickly. By the time MLB cleared him, he will end up spending more time in minor league baseball, likely splitting 2018 between AA and AAA and hitting the major leagues in 2019 once his ultimate position is figured out, however his high-contact skills were evident immediately and should only improve.