As the season draws to a close, what better time to update our SPOW Ranks. As you'll remember, SPOW is Speed+Power. These are the guys that blend the best of both worlds. Of the 1580 200 Min PA minor league eligible guys, here's our top 77, roughly the top 5% of minor leagues (based on their demonstrated blend of speed, power and low K rate).
How do we come up with the ranks? We take wOBA and we further weight that by level (decreasing the value the farther down the minor league system we go). DSL is not AAA, of course, and you can expect that wOBA decreases from level to level, so we've accounted for that. We do the same with the K rate, but in the reverse, as we increase the K rate value with as we go down a level. And finally, the speed. For speed, we take not just stolen bases or the rate of speed from home to first or home to home, but rather the combination of those skills with the Fangraphs Spd value (which also measures a players ability to hit triples or stretch singles into doubles). An expected MiLB average score is 1.54. So, the guys in the 3.0+ range are almost double that of the average, but 2.0 is not too shabby either.
Before we give you the updated ranks, let us tell you about a few of the guys making noise here...
First of all, Miguel Vargas. Miguel didn't get off to a hot start and didn't make our earlier ranks. But he has since been sizzling at the plate, compiling a score good for 5th among all minor leagues (that is rocket fuel stuff). Then there's DSL (NYY) prospect Keiner Delgado. With how little the formula values the DSL level, Keiner had to rock wOBA, Spd and K rate and he did, compiling one of the more impressive DSL campaigns on the year: .310 Avg, 3 HRs, 34 Steals and 58 BBs to 28 K's.
Sal Frelick, Sal has looked real real good at AAA and as much as we love Esteury Ruiz (our overall #1 SPOW) and as much as we like Garrett Mitchell, we were surprised Sal Frelick (.329, 11HRs, 24 SBs) didn't get the initial look by MIL (at least before Mitchell).
The Vaughn brothers. Well, they're not brothers and they don't even spell their name the same, but Vaughn Grissom and Vaun Brown have been dominant in MiLB -- and Grissom is showing us what he can do on the big stage: Batting .290 with 5 HRs and 5 SBs).
Wenceel Perez. You'll find Perez down at #14 on MiLB top 30 for DET. But he shouldn't be. After compiling a .903 OPS with 14 HRs and 18 SBs. Wenceel is the WenReal deal.
And then there are the "who the heck are these guys" trio of Pedro Ramirez, Cristofer Torin and Nelson Rada. Ramirez is a Cubs 2B (though SS by trade) who was recently promoted to A ball (after dominating the ACL, and DSL in 2001). Ramirez hits from the left side with plus power and plus speed. Here's a video of him:
https://twitter.com/baseballinfocus/status/1557501184620969984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1557501184620969984%7Ctwgr%5E39b9d13d497400296ff2496e9324f84910dd5186%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnorthsidebound.com%2F2022%2F08%2F14%2Frookie-league-recap-pedro-ramirez-week-shines-a-light-on-the-young-infielder%2F
How this guy isn't even in the CHC MLB top 30 is beyond me (but MLB Pipeline will catch on).
Cristofer Torin. Just 17, along with Nelson Radea (16) are our youngest SPOW stars. Yes, its the DSL but to have wOBAs of .440plus and K rates below 13% with Spd scores of 8.1 and above make these prospects two to keep an eye on.
And finally, three more fast risers: Austin Gauthier (LAD), Jordan Lawler (AZ) and James Outman (LAD). Each of these prospects had huge second half runs to power their way into SPOW glory (making Tier 3). Gauthier was an undrafted Free Agent who is currently outside the LAD top 30, but not for long after placing top 10 in Cal League average (.298), top 5 OPS (.912), top 10 in triples (4) and top overall in OBP (.464) and runs scored (78). Jordan Lawler we know about, the 2021 #3 pick has outshined the overall 1 (Mayer) and 2 (Leiter), earning himself a promotion to AA. Jordan Lawler is not resting on his Lawlauls.
And finally, James Outman. Coming in at #27 of the LAD MiLB top 30, Outman annihilated AAA OKC to the tune of a 1.017 OPS (which is pretty insane) with 15 HRs and 6 SBs. Oh, Outman didn't do too bad for LAD either, batting .462 (1.409 OPS) with 1 HR and 3 RBIs across 4 games.
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