Scouting Report
Size/Build
Paredes is listed at 5’11” and 225 pounds. He is built thick through the legs with a muscular build overall, but has plenty of athleticism in his frame.
Hitting
Contact (55) – Paredes has a simple setup with an excellent ability to put the heart of the bat to the ball, which leads to plenty of balls leaping off of his bat.
Power (50) – Using a line drive swing, Paredes pounds the gaps with impressive exit velocity. While he certainly has the ability to hit for more over-fence power, Paredes’ line drive swing currently will give him plenty of doubles, but may not lead to a ton of home runs. A bit of swing adjustment could lead to big power numbers, though.
Eye (60) – Paredes has excellent zone and pitch recognition. He has been able to keep his strikeout rate below 15% for nearly his entire minor league career while also having a very good strikeout rate. Adding this to his excellent ability to get the best of the bat to the ball allows Paredes to frequently end up on base on pitches that are meant to generate swing and miss.
Base Running/Fielding
Speed (45) – The thick build of his lower half does mean that Paredes does not have the raw speed that you might want from an infielder, but he does have top-end speed that is quite good when underway, and he has very good instincts on the bases, which has allowed him to steal 8 bases out of the 9 times he has attempted a steal in his brief minor league career thus far.
Defense (45) – This grade is based on Paredes at shortstop. While I might stick with just a hair better grade at second due to limited range, Paredes could quickly move up to a 50-55 at third base as his primary position, as he has excellent first-step reactions. He simply doesn’t have the quickness to have the range to be a shortstop long-term. He does use excellent instincts to read the ball well off the bat and handle short fairly well, allowing him to rarely hurt his team badly while playing the position.
Arm (60) – I’ve seen grades on Isaac Paredes’ arm that range from a 50 to a 65, mostly ranging in the 50-55 range. I simply don’t understand how one could not rate his arm at least plus. I’m only putting it at 60 in this spot as I’m comparing it at shortstop, where he does seem to run into some inaccuracy issues at times, likely due to having to hurry a throw because he has less time to gather than an average shortstop would after getting to a typical ball due to his limited range.
From the third base views I was able to get (4 games, roughly 10 throws in those games), Paredes seems much more comfortable in his throwing from the hot corner, which would likely bump him to a 65.