Prospects are baseball’s greatest mystery. Many enter the league with tons of hype and fanfare, only to disappoint. Others enter with little attention paid to them and go all Jose Iglesias on the league. The important thing to keep in mind is that prospects develop quickly. Some might take years, but others might take just a few months to adjust to the Majors. Many of the prospects we saw come up in the spring are very different players at this point in the season. Let’s go digging real, real deep in the waiver wire and take a look at four rookies who may not sound like great pickups but are playing much better than their full season numbers would indicate.
Derek Dietrich: .218/.282/.421, 9 HR, 23 RBI, 32 R
Dietrich might be one of the most underrated rookies in the league after coming over to the Marlins last year in return for Yunel Escobar. His .218 BA may not scream pick-up but his healthy dose of extra-base hits, RBI, and runs sure do. While he has struggled with strikeouts, the 24-year-old has nine homers, 23 RBI, 32 R, and 21 XBH through 54 games this year. Over his last 15 games, Dietrich is improving, batting .268 with three homers, seven RBI, six doubles, and 10 runs.
His ceiling is pretty good based on his minor league production – he completely bypassed Triple-A. Last season he batted .279 with 14 HR, 52 XBH, 75 RBI, and 71 R. The previous year, he batted .277 with 22 HR, 60 XBH, 81 RBI, and 73 R. Best of all, he has that kind of potential at second base. I think he’ll definitely improve even more next season but he’s good enough to own this year.
Fearless Prediction: .249 BA, 17 HR, 50 RBI, 55 R
Wily Peralta: 7-9, 4.61 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, 70 K/45 BB
Like many rookie starters, Peralta got off to a dreadful start, putting up a 6.08 ERA through his first 15 starts. You can’t be much worse than that unless your name was Dan Haren. At the same time, you can’t pitch much better than Peralta has pitched over his last five starts. Over his last 33.1 IP, Peralta has lowered his ERA to 4.61 as he’s gone 3-1 with a 1.08 ERA, .204 BAA, and 25 K over 33 IP. Baseball America’s 69th top prospect seems to have finally found his rhythm and while he carries plenty of risk the recent production is more than enough to warrant a pickup in deeper leagues.
Fearless Prediction: 13-12, 3.92 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 120 K, 70 BB
Aaron Hicks: .197/.264/.366, 8 HR, 24 RBI, 35 R, 6 SB
Hicks came into the season as Baseball America’s 72nd top prospect. He played great ball in spring training, putting up a .370/.407/.644 line with four homers, 18 RBI, 18 R, 11 XBH, and three steals over 22 games. The Twins decided he was ready and put him in centerfield on Opening Day despite the fact that Hicks had never played a single Triple-A game. Was he ready? No. He batted just .118 over his first 25 games and .138 over his first 38 games.
In the grand scheme of things, that’s really not that big a sample size. Over his last 30 games, he’s been a very different player. In his last 116 plate appearances, Hicks owns a .269/.307/.509 line with five homers, 14 XBH, nine runs batted in, two steals, and 18 runs. If we average that out over a six month season, he’d hit close to 30 homers and score about 90 runs – a far cry from where the 23-year-old was just a couple months ago.
But let’s be real. He’s not a real home run hitter. The most he ever hit in the minors was 13. He’s an extra-base hitter with growing pop and excellent speed. While the home runs may not always be there, he put up 45 XBH last season in Double-A, 41 XBH the previous year, and 51 XBH the year before that. In a pitcher-dominated league, XBH are highly undervalued – they can often bring in just as many RBI and runs as homers. The thing that’s really missing from his game right now is the steals. He stole 32 bases last year and has just six swipes this year. Of course, he only has 47 hits this year and 21 of them for extra-bases so there haven’t been a ton of opportunities to steal.
As the season moves along, I think we’ll see Hicks continue to grow into a solid producer, albeit not a great one. I think his potential is as a 15-30 guy with a passable .280 BA and a healthy dose of runs. This year, I think he’ll at least finish the year batting well above .200 – a mark that has eluded him most of the season.
Fearless Prediction: .235 BA, 13 HR, 42 RBI, 60 R, 12 SB
Jarred Cosart: 1-0, 0.00 ERA, 0.63 WHIP, 2 K/3 BB
Unlike the other players on this list, Cosart has just one start in the Majors. On July 12, Cosart pitched eight scoreless innings in his MLB debut against the Rays, surrendering just two hits, three walks, and striking out two. Not a bad effort against the sixth-best offense in the league. I’ve been fascinated by Cosart for some time because he is a walk machine who is able to get past the inhuman amount of baserunners he allows to put together good numbers. This year in Triple-A, Cosart surrendered a ridiculous 4.8 BB/9 but still owned a 3.29 ERA and passable 1.33 WHIP. One of the reasons is his 7.2 H/9 this year and 7.8 H/9 over his career. A bigger reason is his 0.4 HR/9 over his career.
He’s a very different pitcher than fellow Astros prospect Brad Peacock who struggled mightily in his first nine games for Houston. Peacock came into the Majors having given up 9.8 H/9 and 1.1 HR/9 in the minors last season, to go along with a similar 4.4 BB/9. Cosart has also struck out 9.0/9 this year, allowing him to get out of plenty of jams. While the walks will remain a problem, this kid could end up being the best starter in Houston (not a huge accomplishment, I know) by the end of the year. You can read more about Cosart in our sleeper highlight piece about the former 50th top prospect in the league.
Fearless Prediction: 4-4, 3.39 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 65 K, 35 BB
