Welcome to the eleventh 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.
Andrew Abbott, CIN (Prev. 2)
Andrew Abbott’s Major League debut brought a stellar box score, but we quite didn’t see the advanced metrics to fully back that up. Nothing came as a surprise- we knew that his fastball doesn’t have high-end velocity and that his third and fourth potential pitches still need some development. But he did see much better swing-and-miss rates in AAA, along with better individual pitch locations and chase rates.
I’ve mentioned here before that Abbott has tunneled his pitches well in the Minors by throwing fastballs high to his arm side and curveballs low to his glove side. In his debut his pitch locations were erratic and that plan didn’t show in the heatmaps, although he did throw a ton of strikes as noted by his high Zone%. He could still settle in and regain some more of his AAA skills, but right now I’m a bit cautious especially because he also plays in a very risky home park.
Bryan Woo, SEA (Prev. 3)
Bryan Woo’s box score was atrocious in his MLB debut. However, oddly enough, Woo’s metrics looked a bit better than Abbott’s. The caveat here is that Woo was lifted early after giving up 6 earned runs so he threw less than half the number of pitches that Abbott did. So we’re looking at a super small sample – 47 pitches.
The most promising thing that I saw in Woo’s debut was that he generated 6 whiffs on his fastball in 22 pitches. That’s good for an insane 27.3% SwStr% on that pitch. The bad news is that he failed to get a whiff on any of his other pitch types. His pitch locations weren’t great because he threw way too many pitches in the heart of the zone, and the Rangers’ fantastic offense punished them. The 62% Zone% is fantastic, but no one can live right down the middle.
I think a lot of Woo’s struggles stemmed from being too focused on throwing strikes rather than throwing to spots and also the fact that he faced the 2nd-best offense in baseball by wRC+. I’ll bet on his fastball any day, especially since it had 1-2 more mph of velocity than expected and sat at 96. He’s a solid buy-low candidate if you have the space on your rosters.
Top 10 Pitcher Prospects to Stash
1. Gavin Williams, CLE – ETA June (1)
Gavin Williams is fully blocked at the moment now that the Guardians’ MLB rotation is almost fully healthy. I believe that he’s their SP6 as it stands and that he would be the guy who gets the opportunity if someone were to get injured. Shane Bieber has also been floated as a big trade chip for the Guardians this season, so he could fill the rotation out if that deal is made in July as well.
Williams’ bread-and-butter pitch is his fastball which averages between 96 and 97 mph and can touch 100 mph at times. It gets a ton of swings and misses and he often throws it upwards of 70% of the time in starts. He also features a solid slider as his best secondary pitch and he can also work in a curveball and changeup at times, but much less often.
2. Will Warren, NYY – ETA July (4)
Will Warren had a real clunker of a start last Saturday but is in line to pitch today and we’ll hopefully see a good bounce-back outing. On Saturday he was plagued by poor command. his pitches just missed the edges of the zone and he wasn’t able to generate enough chases to make up for the lack of strikes. He still got a good amount of whiffs with a 13.1% SwStr% and his pitch mix didn’t see any big alterations.
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.
3. Robert Gasser, MLW – ETA June (NR)
Robert Gasser has really improved his skills recently, even if his ERA doesn’t reflect it. And the Brewers are in need of some young starting pitching in their MLB rotation.
Gasser doesn’t have great velocity on any of his pitches, but he’s always carried good strikeout rates in the Minors because he has a deep arsenal and varies his pitches well. The biggest issue for him has been his struggle with command. After being promoted to AAA last season, his walk rates jumped to about 13% after being below 10% for his Minor League career. And through his first 9 appearances this season, Gasser posted a 26% strikeout rate and a 13.3% walk rate in 42 innings pitched. But in his last 2 starts, he’s posted a 29.6% strikeout rate and a 3.7% walk rate in 14 innings pitched.
Two starts certainly don’t mean that his woes are fixed, but it’s a good sign of change at a time when the Brewers are regularly starting guys like Julio Teheran, Adrian Houser, and Colin Rea. I think we’ll see him get a shot very soon.
4. Keaton Winn, SFG – ETA June (NR)
Keaton Winn might turn out to be the guy that we expected Kyle Harrison to be, at least in 2023. He won’t carry a similar strikeout rate, but he could be the MiLB guy that gets the MLB opportunity that Farhan Zaidi hinted at being available for Harrison this past offseason. Winn has quietly posted solid numbers for PCL standards by getting back to the strikeout rate that he posted in the lower levels of the minors and had lost in his brief time at AA last season.
Winn has a 4-seam fastball and sinker that both average 95 mph and the fastball gets a good amount of whiffs while the sinker limits hard contact. His primary offspeed offering is a changeup, which might offer a bit of caution as we’ve seen rookies who rely on their change face mighty struggles at the MLB level this season. But it is his best whiff pitch and he’s confident enough in it to throw it more often than his 4-seamer in some games. He hasn’t gone very deep into games yet, but in his last two starts, he’s posted a 20.9 SwStr% in 110 pitches.
Currently, the Giants only have 3 MLB starters in their rotation on Roster Resource and as of writing this, it isn’t clear who will pitch for them today or tomorrow. Considering Winn is already on the 40-man and his pitching schedule lines up perfectly, I think there’s a solid chance we see him debut this weekend.
5. Emmet Sheehan, LAD – ETA August (7)
Emmet Sheehan continues to dominate AA hitters. He’s maintaining a strikeout rate north of 40% and an ERA south of 2.00. There’s not much more to say until we see him at a higher level.
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.
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.
6. Mike Vasil, NYM – ETA July (NR)
Mike Vasil has consistently had one of the best walk rates in the Minor Leagues for most of the season. He’s only had one poor outing and he’s pitched lights-out in his other 8 starts. He doesn’t have huge upside because his stuff doesn’t jump off the page in movement or velocity, but he has exceptional command of multiple pitches and has racked up strikeouts regardless. I have to think a AAA promotion will be coming soon, and at that point, we’ll have the full Statcast profile to pour over.
7. Ben Brown, CHC – ETA July (5)
Ben Brown’s command has really fallen off recently, and if he doesn’t fix it pretty quickly we could see him slip into a similar situation as Kyle Harrison has found himself in. At least Harrison can blame his age and pitching in the PCL, but Brown has a bit more experience and he doesn’t have to deal with elevation. He’s walked 11 batters in his last 8.1 IP and until he turns that trend around, I don’t believe the Cubs will entertain a promotion.
8. Connor Phillips, CIN – ETA September (NR)
Connor Phillips has been overshadowed a bit by Andrew Abbott in the Reds organization this season. Phillips is currently in the AA Southern League where they’re using a pre-tacked ball and we’ve already seen the varied effects it can have on pitchers as they move through levels. While these stats are great, it’s hard to know exactly what we’re going to get with a normal ball after his eventual promotion to AAA Louisville. However, he posted strikeout rates north of 30% in Low-A and High-A before settling in at 27.6% in AA last season before the tacky ball took over. His walk rates have always been above 10%, but he’s improved on them recently. Again, we’ll see if that sticks after a promotion. The Southern League is a real pain for pitching evaluation.
Phillips has a really good fastball and curveball and a developing slider and changeup. According to MLB Pipeline, Phillips’ fastball sits between 96 and 97 mph and touches 99. His walk rates have always been above 10%, but he’s improved on them recently.
9. DL Hall, BAL – ETA June (8)
DL Hall remains on this list mostly because there isn’t anyone below him making a convincing case to kick him off. He had a solid outing this week, but he walked 4 batters in 3.1 IP and didn’t really take any steps forward in his skills. He’s close to the Majors, but we’re missing the electric stuff that he teased at the end of last season.
10. Quinn Priester, PIT – ETA July (6)
Quinn Priester saw his whiff rates tick back up this week in a start with lackluster results. He’s mostly using his four best pitches and mixing them pretty evenly, which is great. But he’s not quite there yet for perfecting his mix and approach. The walk rate has spiked in his last few starts and we still don’t see great strikeout numbers, even when he has good whiff days.
For Priester, at some point, he will likely have to consistently adopt a quality-over-quantity approach to see the best results. If he chooses 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. It 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.
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!
Featured image by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns on Twitter)