Minor League Baseball: 10 under radar players to watch

Jasseel De La Cruz, RHP, Atlanta Braves

This spring, one of the better Braves prospect follows on Twitter (and a guy definitely worth your follow, even if you’re not a Braves fan!) was discussing a recent De La Cruz performance in camp, and we had this exchange:

Well, he was Rome-bound, and he made his first start of the season on Friday, and it was a beauty. Facing a Hagerstown lineup that is one of the better ones in the South Atlantic league, De La Cruz went 5 innings, and he did not allow a single hit, walked just one, and struck out 8 Suns hitters.

In a Braves system that has one of the deepest pitching rosters in all of minor league baseball, a guy like De La Cruz can get lost, but he features a plus fastball and slider that flashes plus. He showed significant improvement in his change and his overall control last year, with his curve remaining a “show me” pitch, but still one that if sequenced well, could work for him as a fourth pitch.

Built long and lean at 6’1″ with very long arms and legs for his height, De La Cruz has added 10-15 pounds seemingly every season in the Braves organization, looking a solid 175-180 now on the hill. The Braves moved him to the first base side of the pitching rubber in 2016 during his time in the GCL, and it’s helped him significantly in his line to the plate, though he can fall into the trap of trying too hard to overpitch situations, and he’s added a bit of a toe hitch at the top of his delivery that seems to have helped calm his timing to the plate this season and could lead to big things. Of course, in this organization, he’s going to have to push beyond a lot of top 100 type of arms to make his name known, but more work like he did on Friday will get him going for sure.

Joe McCarthy, 1B/OF, Tampa Bay Rays

McCarthy was a highly-touted player coming out of Virginia, but he had back surgery his draft season, causing him to fall to the 5th round, where the Rays were more than happy to grab him, and they’ve been willing to push him aggressively through the system, pushing through both A-ball levels in his first full season in 2016 and having a nice year with the Rays’ AA club in 2017.

McCarthy is one of those guys in minor league baseball that you don’t notice during a game all the time, but you look up at the end of a few games, and he’s gone 3/10 on the series while drawing a few walks and making some quality plays on the bases due to his surprising athleticism at 6’3″ and 225-230 pounds. His arm is really the thing that limits him to a LF/1B profile, otherwise, he has quality instincts in the outfield that would allow him to handle right field well and even cover center in an absolute pinch.

At the plate, McCarthy is a very disciplined hitter, with good feel for the strike zone and the ability to put barrel to the ball frequently, but he has a bit too flat of a swing at this point. He was showing off a bit of swing change that allowed for more loft in his swing during the spring, and if he could keep up his fringe-plus contact rate while tapping into above-average or better power over the fence, he could be a very good offensive piece.

Next: A Phillie and a Ranger