Phillies lefty JoJo Romero and Yankees right-hander Jonathan Loaisiga squared off in a schoolkids' special 10:30 a.m. game at Trenton on Wednesday, a matchup of a top-100 prospect in Romero (No. 59) and a rising star in a Yankees system where every other pitcher seems to throw 95. Loaisiga was the more impressive of the two early, but Romero rallied as his outing progressed, with his last two pitches of the day perhaps his best.
Romero's velocity had picked up late last year and he had held it into spring training, but he'd struggled to hold his stuff and keep runs off the board since the season began, bringing a 7.18 ERA into the Wednesday game through five starts. Romero started out heavy on two-seamers in the 86-89 range and his above-average changeup at 78-80 mph, with a few four-seamers at 89-90 early and one -- a strikeout of Brandon Drury in the first -- at an incongruous 94.
Romero more or less pitched at those velocities, with an inconsistent 76-79 mph curveball, through four innings, giving up three runs, showing below-average command and control while looking stiff and unathletic on the mound, like something was bothering him physically. In the fifth inning, however, he turned everything up a notch and started pitching at 92-94, with more power to the breaking ball (which he threw to Drury's back foot to strike out the rehabbing third baseman a second time), and by the sixth inning he was showing three above-average pitches. His final two pitches of the day, No. 99 and 100, both came in at 95 mph for Romero's seventh strikeout of the day.
I hadn't seen Romero live before Wednesday so if there was a mechanical difference here I couldn't tell you that from this look. I did notice early in the outing he was rolling or spinning off his front foot when he landed, which at the very least can pull a pitcher off line and cost him command. Otherwise, he has a starter's delivery and gets on top of the ball well from a 3/4 slot. Whatever was affecting him early in the outing -- after two innings, he'd thrown 45 pitches and looked like he wasn't long for the game -- he got over it and pitched much more like a potential mid-rotation starter.
Loaisiga was in short-season Staten Island last August; I saw him with the SI Yankees in Aberdeen, his first extended work since the Yanks signed him as a minor league free agent only to have him blow out his elbow almost immediately back in 2015. He was previously signed and released by the Giants, so the Yankees had to put him on the 40-man roster this winter to avoid losing him to the Rule 5 draft.
Using mostly a fastball and breaking ball, Loaisiga was good enough last season for me to rank him No. 11 in a loaded system back in January, but his stuff was electric in his outing on Wednesday and he's taken a big step forward.
Loaisiga pitched at 94-96 mph in his five-inning outing, with some downhill plane to it, and even bumped a single 97. His slider was sharp at 85-87, and he threw a more curveball-shaped breaker at 82. He'd been mostly curveball last year, so I think these are two distinct pitches, with the slider either new or just massively improved (which the Yankees managed to do with Luis Severino after 2016). His changeup came in at 86-89 and some had splitter-like bottom, while others turned over more like a straight change, but all three pitches were comfortably above-average and flashing plus.
Loaisiga recorded his first six outs all via the strikeout and finished with eight against no walks, allowing a solo homer and five other hits. It's plus control but average-at-best command right now, and he's coming a little more across his body than he did, starting on the extreme first base side of the rubber and ending up coming towards the plate. That delivery can make it hard for a pitcher to locate to his glove side, but Loaisiga's pure stuff was so good it didn't matter. There are some reasons to question his ultimate role, including the delivery and his size, but that's a starter's arsenal and more than enough feel and control right now to project him there.
• On Monday and Tuesday evenings, I caught the Potomac Nationals, who now feature the Nats' top two position-player prospects below Victor Robles, at my local Wilmington Blue Rocks. I had five hitters on the two rosters on my target list, but a surprise sixth guy, who had posted a whopping .295 OBP last year, demanded my attention.
Juan Soto is the Nats' No. 2 prospect, and there's a lot of Victor Robles and even Ronald Acuña to his game, although he's still pretty raw and I don't think he's going to race to the majors like Acuña did. Soto has electric bat speed and the ball comes off his bat loudly, while he also showed off grade 70 speed, running a 3.98 on a two-strike grounder to short where he sort of pulled an Ichiro (swing short, go the other way, run like hell). His approach overall, however, was not great; he was badly fooled by a lefty throwing breaking stuff at him Tuesday, and he has such a wide base and so short a stride (when he strides at all) that reacting to changing speeds is going to be an issue for him. These are superstar tools, though, and he may just mash his way out of high-A before higher-level pitchers force him to tighten up his approach
• The surprise player for me was outfielder Telmito Agustin -- born in St. Thomas but signed as a free agent in the Dominican Republic -- whom I'd seen last summer when he was a skinny and underpowered 20-year-old who didn't seem like a prospect at all. After a couple of hits Tuesday night including a long homer, Agustin is up to .395/.419/.674 in 95 PA in high-A with just 14 strikeouts, and I think the Nats have something here. Agustin worked to gain strength this offseason and is up to 190 pounds (from his listed 160), with loud contact all over the field the last two nights, including that homer and a later single off the outfield wall in roughly the same spot. He gets leaky with two strikes and can reach for off-speed stuff in those counts, but has enough plate coverage that he can still put a lot of those pitches in play. He's an average runner and probably a left fielder in the long run -- he played there with Soto in center, of course -- but the swing really works and the newfound power seems real.
• Shortstop Carter Kieboom was part of the Nats' big draft haul in 2015, the first player they selected (at No. 28 overall) but the only one of their first four picks still in the organization after the trades for Adam Eaton, Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson. Kieboom, like Soto, missed most of 2017 due to injuries, but unlike Soto has had some trouble with his promotion to high-A after less than half a season at low-A Hagerstown last year as evidenced by his .217/.327/.372 start.
Kieboom seems to control the strike zone well enough, but he's hitting everything on the ground right now, including five of his six balls in play in those two games and a 56 percent rate on the season (per MLBfarm). He has plenty of arm for short but not the agility or footwork. He looks like he'd be fine, possibly very fine, at second or third, but his future depends on him not pounding the ball into the ground.
• Khalil Lee is the best prospect on Wilmington this year, the Royals' third-round pick in 2016 and their top prospect coming into this year. Lee has continued to walk like crazy and now sports a .411 OBP this season, and he's brought his strikeout rate down from last year even with the move to a decent pitchers' park in Frawley Stadium. He's an above-average runner and looks like he'll stay in center field, and there's certainly some raw power in there. I see some swing and miss -- mostly because his swing can get long -- but the OBP-power-position combination points to an everyday player, maybe an above-average one, and I think justifies his ranking as the No. 1 prospect in this system.