Welcome to the tenth edition of The Stash List for pitchers!
Ground Rules
- The Stash List is for your redraft leagues and does not consider impact beyond 2023
- Only current minor league players who are expected to make an impact this season are included
- Players who have already made their MLB debuts can not have thrown more than 50 IP in MLB
- Upside, proximity, health, and opportunity are all weighed for each player
- The focus is on 12-team leagues with standard categories
- Rankings and ownership percentages will be updated weekly
Graduates
This section of the column highlights the pitchers that were on the previous week’s list but have since made their MLB debuts and are no longer considered stashes because they’re still on their team’s active roster.
AJ Smith-Shawver, ATL (Prev. 8)
AJ Smith-Shawver has yet to make his Major League debut as of Friday afternoon. He is on the Braves active roster after being called up earlier this week, but the team has announced that he will pitch out of the bullpen to begin his MLB career.
The promotion came after only two starts in AAA, but he looked extremely impressive in those starts. He’s likely their long relief option for now and serves as the team’s sixth starter if necessary. My guess is that they have some version of an innings cap for this this year and the bullpen move will keep him fresh while giving him experience against big league hitters. Smith-Shawver only pitched 68.2 innings last season so it’s unlikely that we see him throw more than 100 IP this year across levels. So far, he’s at 33 IP one-third of the way through the season.
Top 10 Pitcher Prospects to Stash
1. Gavin Williams, CLE – ETA June (1)
In Gavin Williams‘ two starts this week, he threw 11.1 innings, allowed 4 runs, and recorded 7 walks and 15 strikeouts. He kept up the trend of throwing his fastball and slider primarily, but now he’s leaning into his four-seamer even more. In his last two starts he’s combined to throw his fastball 71.9% of the time. in last Saturday’s game he allowed a ton of contact and only generated 8 whiffs in 96 pitches. In his start last night, he bounced back by getting 17 whiffs in 96 pitches.
It looks like Williams is going to ride his elite fastball as far as it will take him. For some context on the recent usage: Bryce Miller throws his fastball the most out of anyone in the Majors with at least 30 IP this year. Miller throws his 68.4% of the time, which is still a few ticks below William’s trending usage.
2. Andrew Abbott, CIN – ETA June (2)
Andrew Abbott was stellar in his start again this week, and if it wasn’t for Williams’ 100 mph fastball Abbott would likely be sitting atop this list. The Reds have far more opportunities in their rotation, but Great American Ballpark is a very tough place to pitch and the run support is spotty at best. That said, Abbott could disregard all of it and proceed to shove as he’s done all year. In this last start he had 16 whiffs in 86 pitches (a 18.6% StStr%) and baited a ton of chases outside the zone.
Abbott keeps hitters off balance with the threat of a huge bending curve from the left side. It’s his best strikeout pitch and it tunnels off the fastball really well. He does this by throwing his fastball high to the arm side and the curveball low to the glove side. His fastball sits around 92 mph, his curve sits in the low 80s, and his change sits in the mid-80s. Thanks to this last start where he walked 0 batters in 7 innings, his AAA walk rate now sits below 10% for the first time since his promotion.
3. Bryan Woo, SEA – ETA TODAY (6)
The big news this week is that Bryan Woo will make his MLB debut today against the Rangers. He probably technically doesn’t qualify for this list anymore, but the news was announced after I wrote 90% of the article so he’s gotta stay in for another week. The Mariners predictably didn’t want any part of Woo throwing in the PCL, much like George Kirby and Bryce Miller before him. I think Woo has very similar upside to Bryce Miller. Their fastballs and sliders are very similar, but Woo has about 2-3 mph less on his fastball. It might limit his upside just a bit for now, but the shape and command on the pitch is still impeccable. I would recommend adding Woo in all leagues regardless of size and format. He’s very fun to watch.
Bryan Woo looked much more like himself this week, as he struck out 6 and walked 2 in 5 innings on Sunday. Woo has an extremely smooth and repeatable delivery with a low arm angle that helps him create a significant amount of carry on his fastball. It sits at 94-95 and avoids the middle of the zone with solid command. He also features a slider and changeup, but he’s primarily a fastball/slider pitcher. The slider is shaped very similarly to the gyro slider that Miller also throws- it breaks tightly with very little horizontal movement. I think they might be onto something in Arkansas.
4. Will Warren, NYY – ETA June (10)
Will Warren was almost untouchable on Sunday against the Worcester Red Sox. He commanded all five of his pitches well but really filled up the zone with his sinker and drew most of his whiffs on his sweeper.
Warren features a 5-pitch mix. His 4-seam fastball is his primary offering and it averages 94 mph. It’s the pitch he’s able to throw in the zone with the most consistency and it generates a fair amount of whiffs and chases, but nothing too crazy. It’s a good table setter.
He has two different sliders- a sweeper in the low 80s that’s his best whiff pitch (but it can have trouble staying in or near the zone), and a mid-to-high 80s power slider that he can throw for strikes much more often. He also has a sinker and changeup but throws them 10% less each and there isn’t a ton of data on them yet. It’s a very interesting profile that’s much more promising than the AAA results currently show.
5. Ben Brown, CHC – ETA July (3)
Ben Brown registered his best start of the season last Saturday. He recorded 17 whiffs in 92 pitches (18.5% SwStr%), a 39% CSW%, and 40% O-Swing%. He’s been primarily featuring his 96 mph 4-seam fastball and his 86 mph slider, but in this start he bumped up the usage on his 87 mph sweeper just a little bit. I’ve been discussing how he’s recently gotten away from burying his slider and elevating his fastball recently, but in this start his locations looked to be much more advantageous. The sliders were low or buried and the fastball filled the zone but it was primarily located high and to the arm side.
These trends all reversed in his second start of the week on Friday night, however. He didn’t get very many whiffs, he struggled to find the zone with much consistency, and he couldn’t entice just about anyone to chase his pitches out of the zone. His command was atrocious, and his pitch locations were all over the map. In AAA over the last few weeks it seems like every time Brown takes a big step forward, he takes a bigger step back. For now, he’s only a stash in very deep leagues.
6. Quinn Priester, PIT – ETA July (4)
Quinn Priester has a really rough, blowup start last Saturday where he walked 6 batters and gave up 5 runs in 1.2 innings. He threw the ball in the zone much more often than you would expect with that many walks, but just wasn’t able to get anyone to chase any of his pitches other than his sinker. Overall the chase rate sat at just 24%. The bright side is that he still got some good whiff numbers with a 15.3% SwStr% overall.
Priester continues to tinker with his pitch mix, and this time out he relied primarily on his sinker and slider while mixing in his other four pitches sporadically. He doesn’t maintain very high velocity- his sinker and 4-seamer each average 93. His changeup doesn’t have very much velo separation from those two at all- it comes in at 91, which is a bit confusing and concerning. He also has a cutter that averages 92 mph and a slider that averages 87. Really the only pitch that offers a big velocity separation to keep hitters off balance is his curveball, which averages 79 mph.
He also started last night and he used a more balanced pitch mix where he throw his curveball much more often (22%). It seems like his best outings come when he throws that curve at least 15% of the time, as last night he didn’t allow any runs in 6 innings and struck out 6 batters.
For Priester, at some point he will likely have to consistently adopt a quality over quantity approach to see the best results. If he choses his best 4 pitches with good velo and movement separation (including the curveball) and is able to get back to his stellar command, then he could throw impactful MLB innings throughout the summer. If seems like a tall task right now, but it can happen very quickly. Continue to monitor how he progresses and he could be a saving grace as IL spots get more and more crowded in August.
7. Emmet Sheehan, LAD – ETA August (NR)
Emmet Sheehan now leads all of minor league baseball with a 44.2% strikeout rate after he fanned 9 batters in 6 innings on Sunday. The Dodgers have a good amount of pitching depth as it stands, but Gavin Stone hasn’t performed as well as many people (including myself) thought he would, and it’s possible that Sheehan could be in the mix for spot starts soon after the All-Star break.
We unfortunately don’t have Statcast data on Sheehan to paint the full picture of his arsenal, but here’s some footage of his most recent start form Eric Cross’ Twitter account.
Emmet Sheehan impressed again today.
6 IP, 2 H, ER, 2 BB, 9 K
ERA is now down to 1.64.
This is a top-10 pitching prospect.#Dodgers pic.twitter.com/UDwRnSYMz3
— Eric Cross (@EricCross04) May 29, 2023
We can see that Sheehan features a fastball with good carry and command, a slider with tight break and great depth, and what looks like a circle change with solid arm side movement and vertical drop. Here’s to hoping that he gets a call up to AAA soon so we can get all the good Statcast data on him. Just keep in mind that he would play in the PCL and both the pitch data and results aren’t always the most dependable in high altitude. Regardless, as Eric Cross said above, this is one of the best emerging prospects in baseball.
8. DL Hall, BAL – ETA June (5)
I’m officially a bit concerned about DL Hall. His velocity was still down by about 2 mph across the board in his latest start and the command of his breaking pitches only got worse after it had dipped in the previous start. The results weren’t nearly as bad this time, but nothing in the peripherals stood out on a positive note. He only generated 3 whiffs in 50 pitches (6% SwStr%) and allowed a 100% Z-Contact%. This new version of Hall definitely isn’t sustainable and even though he’s shown that he’s very close to an MLB role, he’ll fall off this list by next week if we don’t see some improvement across the board.
9. Patrick Monteverde, MIA – ETA August (9)
Patrick Monteverde was back in action this week after skipping last week’s start. I still haven’t seen anything about why he skipped a start, but I’m wondering if whatever it was is still nagging him. He had the worst start of the season on Sunday when he allowed 6 runs in 3 innings of work. He’ll look to bounce back today as he’s scheduled to pitch against the Biloxi Shuckers.
His arsenal lacks tremendous upside, but he has good command of multiple pitches and can change speeds and locate them well. His fastball sits in the low 90s and he has three variations: the four-seam, two-seam, and cutter. The cutter also works off of his slider really well and he can use those two pitches in tandem to keep hitters off balance. He also features a changeup, which could be his best whiff pitch.
10. Cade Povich, BAL – ETA August (7)
Cade Povich allowed 5 ER in 4.1 innings in his start this week, but his walk rate is keeping steady and his strikeout rate is still well above average. He could see a promotion in the first half of the season if he can break the plateau and get the walk rate below 10% consistently.
His fastball sits in the mid-90s from the left side and he also features a cutter, slider, curveball, and changeup. His delivery is a bit deceptive as he hides the ball well, and his arm slot is maybe a bit higher than the 3/4 range. This allows him to drop the hammer with a huge curveball, but likely limits the sweep on his slider. He’s confident with both breaking pitches and can fill up the zone with them if he needs to.
The Watchlist
This section of The Stash List is aimed towards those of you who play in deep leagues (15+ teams or 375+ players rostered) where some of the guys on the list above might already be taken because of their higher pedigree. These players’ debuts will likely be a bit further out than the players listed above, but the purpose is to be ready to pounce on them as soon as it becomes clear that an opportunity might open up.
The players are listed in alphabetical order, and I don’t have the time to do write-ups for these guys, so I’d highly suggest checking out their Fangraphs pages and/or watching one of their starts. Also, shout out to @SpokaneWaUpdate on Twitter for inspiring this section of the article!