Notes from some minor league games I've attended in the last few weeks:
Right-hander Brenan Hanifee was the Baltimore Orioles' fourth-round pick in 2016 out of high school in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and had a promising debut last summer for short-season Aberdeen, showing above-average control and a potentially plus sinker. He started this year in the rotation at low-A Delmarva and has continued to progress, now working with a four-pitch mix, still showing the same control, and flashing enough with his offspeed pitches to offer hope that he can continue to develop into a fourth or maybe even third starter.
Hanifee pitches at 90-94 and can show plus sink on his fastball, although he has the same inconsistency with it that he shows on all of his pitches. He showed a tight slider at 85-87, a true curveball at 80-82 that he hung a few times (once for a homer) and a changeup that ranged from a grade 40 pitch to a solid-average offering at 84-86, sometimes showing good sinking action. Every pitch was inconsistent, and he often left his fastball up, without sink, which made it very hittable; that and the hanging curveballs accounted for all the damage done against him.
Hanifee comes from a three-quarters slot and has a simple delivery with good, quick arm acceleration and a little deception as he hides the ball behind his body. He might gain some velocity as he matures, but I don't think he needs to throw harder -- he needs consistency, especially in location, which should come from experience. There's nothing in his delivery that would indicate he can't do it.
• Lakewood's starter against Delmarva was lefty Will Stewart, who entered the game leading the Sally League with a 1.16 ERA, although he's kind of a soft-tossing lefty who relies more on deception and his changeup rather than power stuff to get outs. Stewart touched 93 but pitched at 88-90, with very long arm action (think Joe Kelly, especially when he was younger), and paired that with a high-spin breaking ball and above-average changeup that got some very awkward swings. Lefties were visibly affected by his weird delivery and slot a little below three-quarters, but he throws his fastball at right-handed hitters' bats, and as he moves up the ladder those hitters are going to dig in and get some very good hacks at the pitch. He's a prospect, but one along the lines of Kyle Hendricks, who has to prove himself at every level because the pure stuff is right on the margin of what works in the majors.
• I've seen Jhailyn Ortiz twice during the season on top of what I saw at spring training, and even though his stat line isn't great -- he's hitting .258/.308/.413 since his return from the DL in late May -- he still looks like an impact bat with patience and power. His at-bats are good and I've seen him work the other way as well as drop the bat head and show off his plus-plus pull power. My only real question about him is whether he can stick in left field; he's a heavy kid, and even if he works on his conditioning, it's always going to be a battle for him to stick anywhere but at first or DH.
• Simon Muzziotti just returned from the DL himself, and he's also with Lakewood despite spending his career before 2018 in the Gulf Coast League or below. One of the players the Red Sox lost in 2016 after they were penalized for violating international signing rules, Muzziotti has electric hands and great bat speed, turning on velocity with no trouble, and showing above-average speed on the bases. He may not quite be ready for low-A at age 19, with just 148 plate appearances anywhere in the U.S. before this year, but I think his bat speed is enough to let him stay afloat and work on his approach.
• I caught Bubba Thompson, Texas' first-round pick last year, for one game at Lakewood a few weeks ago. He's obviously a tremendous athlete with a quick bat, but he's leaking out over his front side, way out in front of offspeed stuff and popping up pitches he could drive. He has tools, but he is already 20 and needs to show a little more performance in low-A given his age.
• The White Sox gave Micker Adolfo $1.6 million, a team record at the time, to sign at the July 2 deadline in 2013, only to have him struggle with freak injuries and poor performance for his first few years in the system. Through the 2016 season, he had a career 36 percent strikeout rate and a .225/.283/.356 line between the Arizona Rookie League and a brief stint in the Sally League. Last year, he started to show real progress at the plate, and this year he finally reached high-A at age 21 and has broken out for real, with a .286/.371/.473 line, a 27 percent strikeout rate and better at-bats even when he's striking out. Adolfo is a big kid with huge raw power -- he homered in the 10th inning to give the Dash a victory at Wilmington on Saturday, in a park that doesn't see a lot of long balls -- but his control of the zone is massively improved, and even his strikeouts show that promise. He's able to catch up to velocity, and he's adjusting to offspeed stuff. He has only hit this year, DHing because of an elbow injury, so there's always the risk he'll miss time to get that dealt with, but the White Sox have to be ecstatic to see him develop into a potential middle-of-the-order bat, someone who could hit 35 homers with a solid OBP.
• Center fielder Luis Gonzalez, the White Sox's third-round pick in 2017, played Saturday night, showing good speed and a solid two-strike approach. A left-handed hitter who looks like he might stay in center, Gonzalez (no relation to the former Astros/Diamondbacks outfielder) didn't show power, but kept putting the ball in play, striking out once on a southpaw's slider down and away and singling four times. Gonzalez is a college product but started the year a level too low, with Kannapolis, so his performance with high-A Winston-Salem will be much more telling.
• Two White Sox hitting prospects who didn't look good: Blake Rutherford and Gavin Sheets, both on the Winston-Salem roster. Rutherford put the ball in play regularly, but he might as well have been swinging a wet newspaper, making nothing but soft contact, usually on the ground. Sheets looked really bad against lefties, and struggled to catch up to 93-plus mph from either side. He's a below-average athlete and often steps in the bucket when he strides, so anything spinning away from him is trouble.
• Two Royals arms worth knowing about: Lefty Daniel Tillo, taken in the third round in last year's draft, is 89-93 from a low slot, but throws what looks like a cutter and a changeup at a very similar velocity range, both 88-90. All those pitches look the same coming out of his hand, the fastball moving one way, the cutter the opposite way and the changeup just sort of fading as it approaches the plate. Right-hander Ofreidy Gomez has great deception and shows four pitches, 93-96 with a power curveball with angle and a hard changeup, as well as a slider, but he has well below-average command and control.