The Philadelphia Phillies' 18-year-old right-hander, Sixto Sanchez, has one of the best fastballs of any starter in the minors, perhaps the best, with his three pitches last Wednesday coming in at 99, 100 and 99 mph -- easy velocity with a little life to the pitch as well. He threw 62 pitches over six innings, 46 of them fastballs and six of those 100 or 101 mph. He thoroughly overpowered the Rome Braves' hitters twice through the order before they started to time his fastball more the third time through, showing the weakness of his secondary stuff and his present fastball command.
Sanchez is a surprising guy to hit triple digits with so little effort, as he's about 5-foot-10, 175 pounds or so and not overly muscular but blessed with a lightning-quick arm. His is some of the easiest velocity I have ever seen, comparable to that of Cincinnati right-hander Hunter Greene (the No. 2 pick in this year's draft). Although Sanchez doesn't really command the pitch, he was around the plate enough his whole outing Wednesday. His changeup was his best second pitch, solid average right now, mostly 88-89 mph with some late downward action, though he can overthrow it and turn it into a batting practice fastball. He doesn't have a present average breaking ball; he's throwing a curveball-ish sort of thing at 81-85 mph that's a grade-40 pitch at the low end of the range, but it creeps up when he throws it harder, and it starts to take on slider characteristics.
Sanchez does everything so easy and clean that I don't see any physical or mechanical reason he can't start, but he's going to need to improve that offspeed stuff to do that. An 80 fastball, 60 change, 50 breaking ball with 50 command is at least a No. 2 starter, but that's projecting a lot of improvement on the last three points. I have had scouts say they think he's a closer, and that's certainly possible, but I'd call it an absolute worst-case scenario. If you want to be the optimist here, bear in mind that Noah Syndergaard was also up to 99 mph with no breaking ball to speak of when Toronto drafted him at age 18 out of a Dallas area high school, and he has worked out OK. Sanchez isn't built like Thor but has a similarly easy, clean arm swing and tremendous arm speed, so perhaps there's a future plus-slider in there that no one can see just yet.
Lakewood's rotation is just ridiculous this year, and that's without JoJo Romero, who was recently promoted to high-A after dominating the Sally League. I know a few scouts who rate Adonis Medina over Sanchez in the Phillies' system because Medina has the present secondary stuff that Sixto lacks. I saw Medina on June 30 against Hagerstown, and the right-hander was throwing 91-96 mph with a four-pitch mix, including a hard-action changeup at 84-87 mph that was better when he eased up on the pitch, an above-average curveball at 76-79 mph and an average slider at 79-82 mph. (That's assuming those two were distinct pitches, which they looked like out of his hand.) Like Sanchez, Medina gets his velocity without much effort, but his delivery isn't as pristine -- he flies open at release too often -- and hitters were on his fastball, which is hard but straight. I'd rank him behind Sixto, but both have above-average starter ceilings.
Both those guys were outpitched by lefty Nick Fanti, from my hometown of Smithtown, New York (although Fanti went to Hauppauge High School, a terrible decision on his part). Fanti threw a no-hitter this week in Lakewood's game against the Yanks' low-A affiliate Charleston -- the second time Fanti was involved in a no-hitter this year. Fanti is 88-91 mph, but hitters don't see the pitch well, and he worked heavily off the fastball all day, showing a potential average curve and changeup but using them to change speeds and keep hitters from timing him. I worry a bit about the lack of a clear out pitch here, but the awkward swings he got are promising, and it isn't as if hitters adjusted the third time through the order. He could be a back-end starter, especially if there's a little more velocity in here and he can pitch with that deception at something like 90-93 mph.
Lakewood has a few bats of note, but the big two prospects aren't doing much at the plate this year. Mickey Moniak is struggling to get on base this year, though he's just barely 19 and in his first full pro season. His narrow stance and soft front side are preventing him from driving the ball, and I've seen him swing at sliders like he has never seen one before. This doesn't make him a non-prospect or a bad one, but he isn't as advanced at the plate as the Phillies thought when they took him first overall in 2016.
Second baseman Daniel Brito is an athletic kid with a lot of fast-twitch actions, but he has looked physically overmatched the three times I've seen him this year -- reminiscent of another very slight Phillies prospect, Carlos Tocci, when he was with Lakewood at ages 17 and 18 a few years ago. I've seen Brito work several great at-bats, but offspeed stuff away gives him fits. He has great hands at second base and a quick transfer from glove to throwing hand.
Fanti's no-hitter came at the expense of two of the Yankees' top hitting prospects, outfielders Blake Rutherford (who has since been traded to the White Sox) and Estevan Florial, both of whom are left-handed hitters and did not like what they saw from the southpaw on Monday. Florial, who represented Haiti on the World Team at this month's MLB Futures Game, is a physically imposing, athletic kid with a big, furious swing who is loading his hands a little deep and creating some length, which might explain his high strikeout rate this year. He punched out in all three at-bats against Fanti, twice swinging on breaking balls and once looking on a fastball that was probably high. Rutherford was also 0-for-3 but had better at-bats. His approach is very simple and quiet, but he's opening his front hip and rolling his front foot over, which produced a bunch of foul balls and a groundout to second. The one time he kept his front side closed, he lined out to left.
Hagerstown, Washington's low-A affiliate, was without its two best players, Juan Soto and Carter Kieboom, as both went on the DL at the end of June. But I did see a few prospects of note. Sheldon Neuse is now in the Oakland system after he was included in the Sean Doolittle/Ryan Madson trade. The 22-year-old infielder was too old for low-A but is now in high-A Stockton, turning around 95 from Medina but struggling to hit the right-hander's breaking ball. Daniel Johnson, among the Sally League's leaders in various power categories, is similarly too old for the level and has raw power but a below-average hit tool. He is probably limited to first base. Lefty Tyler Watson started for the Suns and showed an 87-91 mph with a below-average, slurvy breaking ball, but it came from a low slot in a cross-body delivery that makes him very hard for left-handers to hit. His stat line this year is promising, but he's almost certainly a reliever in the long run.
Rome started lefty Tucker Davidson against Sanchez, and though Davidson couldn’t crack Atlanta's top 20 prospects, he has a good enough arm that I expect him to have some sort of major league role. Coming from a very high slot, nearly right over the top, Davidson was 91-94 mph with no movement, showing an average-ish curveball at 77-83 mph that he seemed to vary by design and a mid-80s changeup with good action. His fastball is too straight right now, which is pretty common in guys with super high arm slots. But he has the weapons to be a fifth starter even if he can't find a way to mitigate the lack of movement. Davidson was Atlanta's 19th-round pick last year out of two-year Midland College in Texas.
Nineteen-year-old centerfielder Cristian Pache plays centerfield like a big leaguer already but showed a 40 arm in that game. While at the plate, he popped up twice against Sanchez before getting a fastball away at 93 mph that he lined the other way for a base hit. Like Brito, he looks very young for this level.
Short-season Aberdeen plays in one of my favorite ballparks in the minors, Ripken Stadium -- the one you pass on I-95 while driving through Maryland. I caught Baltimore's third-round pick, lefty Zac Lowther, there back on July 5. Lowther, out of Xavier University, doesn't grade out that well by traditional evaluations, with a fringy fastball at 88-90 mph that looks flat and a similarly fringy curveball in the upper 70s. But Trackman data tells a different story, as he has a very high extension (almost 7 feet) out front and a high spin rate on the fastball. In his truncated outing against Lowell, as he pitched almost exclusively with his fastball and got weak contact after weak contact, he showed enough that the scout sitting next to me remarked that he couldn't remember seeing 88-90 mph get hit so softly. He'll be worth watching, as I think a lot of teams were down on Lowther because the stuff is unimpressive by the eye test.
Lowell started right-hander Nick Duron, Boston's 31st-round pick in 2015 who came into velocity this past offseason after missing 2016 due to injury. Duron was 92-97 mph with a power slider at 84-87 mph and a changeup he can bury at 83-85 mph. Duron is very athletic, and his arm is really quick, but he pitches like a guy who's still figuring out how to work with his newfound stuff, and his fastball was hit harder than Lowther's because it doesn't have much life or movement to it. The slider flashed plus, and given how athletic he is, I'd bet on further improvements, especially to command and control.
Two days before I saw Fanti complete his no-hitter, I caught Cleveland's top pitching prospect, right-hander Triston McKenzie, take a no-hitter into the seventh inning for Lynchburg against Wilmington. As with Lowther, it's the little things that help McKenzie's stuff play up. McKenzie, who also appeared in the Futures Game, was throwing 88-92 mph with some glove side run, but he gets out over his front side well enough that hitters react like it's 95-plus. He throws what looks like a true 11/5 curveball at 78-79 mph, burying it down and away to right-handers. But I thought his changeup at 82-86 mph was too firm, and I could see him turning it over when he released it -- a potential tipoff to hitters. McKenzie is very flexible and has as much projection as any kid in the minors, still with a teenager's body that will probably always be slight but has room for growth. The success he has had in high-A without filling out yet or throwing hard is a great, positive sign for Cleveland.
Lynchburg's shortstop, Willi Castro, was 10th on my Cleveland prospect ranking this winter, despite a tough full-season debut last year at age 19. He has shown remarkable growth at the plate despite moving up a level, in part (I think) because he has finally gotten stronger. Castro can really play short with easy actions and a plus arm, while his left-handed swing is direct and showed off that new strength, as he was able to fight off a fastball on the inner third and send it to left field for a single. I imagine every team in trade talks with Cleveland will try to include him in any package for an impact player.