6. Jesus Luzardo, LHP
Birthday (age on opening day 2018): 9/30/1997 (20)
2017 teams/levels played for: Gulf Coast League Nationals, Arizona Rookie League Athletics, short-season A-ball Vermont Lake Monsters
2017 Stats: 12 G, 11 GS, 43 1/3 IP, 1.66 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 2.9% BB, 28.1% K
Info: Luzardo was an elite talent coming into the 2016 draft, but Tommy John surgery in the summer of his senior season caused him to fall in the draft, where the Washington Nationals selected him in the 3rd round.
Luzardo had just gotten back onto the mound in 2017 when the Nationals traded him to the Oakland Athletics in the deal that sent relievers Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to Washington.
Luzardo put up numbers that were certainly eye catching in his pro debut among three different teams, but what is most impressive is just how he did it.
Typically, when you see a pitcher work with an elite K/BB ratio like Luzardo, he is a guy with a middling fastball that lives on location of his array of pitches, not really on movement or velocity. Luzardo is the opposite. His easy delivery allows him to generate fastball velocity up to 97 MPH with excellent late life, and he has good command of a late-breaking curve that doesn’t tend to miss a ton of bats, but gets plenty of weak contact.
Luzardo’s best offspeed pitch is his change up, a pitch that Luzardo really didn’t use in high school and has developed as a pro, but I heard grades as high as 65-70 future value on the change from scouts who saw him this year, impressed by his ability to spot the change and the way the ball moves as it nears the plate.
His mid-rotation projection could become even more with more arm strength and perhaps a fourth pitch (or further dominance of his offspeed stuff), but Luzardo has shown to be a draft steal to this point. He should open in full-season ball this year and could move quickly.
5. Austin Beck, OF
Birthday (age on opening day 2018): 11/21/1998 (19)
2017 teams/levels played for: Arizona Rookie League Athletics
2017 Stats: .211/.293/.349, 174 PA, 2 HR, 7 SB, 17/51 BB/K
Info: One of the elite athletes in the 2017 draft, Beck drew a wide variety of scouting reports due to a number of scouts not seeing Beck in the summer before his senior year against top competition, so judging him when their only view was against local competition was difficult to truly gauge.
However, talent like Beck’s is hard to hide and certainly hard to ignore on the field. Beck ended up as the #6 overall selection of the Oakland Athletics.
talent like Beck’s is hard to hide and certainly hard to ignore on the field
Beck flashed his athleticism in his pro debut, playing center field, launching balls from the outfield defensively such that he tallied 5 assists in just 33 games in the outfield. That would be a full season pace of roughly 23 assists. For perspective, the most assists by any outfielder in the major leagues was 15.
Beck offers a double-plus arm along with plus defensive abilities in the outfield, but his real key is his booming bat. Beck has incredible raw power to pair with his plus speed as a well-rounded athlete. However, as his struggles in his pro debut showed, he has work to do in his pitch and zone recognition.
The Oakland Athletics will give him the chance to work on those skills in extended spring, most likely, and then he will likely be bumped straight to low-A.
Next: #3 and #4