The San Diego Padres have called up 1B prospect Josh Naylor, who will be making his MLB debut in his home country of Canada. Heres what to expect.
With six upcoming games against the Blue Jays and Yankees, the San Diego Padres have promoted 1B prospect Josh Naylor to the big leagues. This is no doubt exciting as Padres fans have been waiting for Naylor’s explosive bat to make it to the show.
Naylor was drafted by the Marlins in the first round out of high school in Canada, gets to make his Padres debut in his home country. Naylor is a primary 1B who dabbled in left field and will likely fit best as a designated hitter. Naylor was acquired by the Padres in a trade that sent Andrew Cashner to the Marlins when they were actually competing.
Sources: The Padres are calling up Josh Naylor. He is a Mississauga native who will make his major-league debut in neighboring Toronto.
— Dennis Lin (@dennistlin) May 24, 2019
The first thing you will likely notice about Naylor is his light-tower power, 70 Raw Power on the 20/80 scale. The more noticeable thing is that Naylor is built like an Abrams tank, measuring in at 5′ 11″, 250 pounds.
Naylor has been an above average hitter most of his time in the minor leagues, posting above average batting lines at every level save for his first time in high A and double A. The past two seasons, Naylor has hit 27 home runs and had a wRC+ over 120.
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Most impressive about his profile is that he has incredible control of the strike zone. This season he has as many walks as strikeouts (11.5% rate for both) and last year displayed nearly the same amount of discipline (11% BB, 12% K).
With the San Diego Padres blockbuster signing of Eric Hosmer, they had to get creative with Naylor and have been working him in LF. With strikeouts at an all-time high, defensive positioning is less important because there are less balls in play to deal with. While you can look at Naylor and think no chance he’s a LF, with advance positioning he could at least be “tolerable”. At a minimum, it can’t be worse than Hanley Ramirez.
So what can we expect from the big lefty?
Clearly, if Josh Naylor is going to have an impact it will come by way of his bat. The Padres are hoping for a whole lot of dingers like these.
If Naylor can continue to provide above-average production and hit like he did, that would be a welcome shot in the arm for the Padres. Even if Naylor can be average, that would still boost a Padres team that has only mustered an 85 wRC+ as a team.
Long term, if Naylor can learn to hit a few more balls in the air, he could turn into an impact bat. If not, he probably will look like James Loney without the defense as an underpowered first baseman who still provides some value.
The Padres are rolling out another player from their farm as their path to contention begins. Naylor follows Fernando Tatis Jr., Chris Paddack, and Nick Margevicius to the big leagues.
It is unclear how long Naylor’s look in the majors will last, however, the Padres have shown they are willing to let young players run with jobs if they are producing. For Naylor, a likely DH, the range of outcomes could be David Ortiz or it could be James Loney.
The DH in the National League is imminent and Naylor could be auditioning for that role or as a deadline buy for other NL teams thinking ahead to its eventual implementation. Regardless of the final outcome, Naylor should provide some pop to a San Diego Padres team that is still competing in the NL West.