I saw Southisene before the draft and saw nine more plate appearances in the Jersey Shore series, and I don\u2019t think he\u2019s changed at all since high school. He\u2019s still struggling with any kind of fastball up, even at 91-92, and anything up and in is kryptonite to him. He had one hit, a double in his first at-bat on a badly hanging slider, and after that it was a lot of whiff and weak contact.<\/p>\n
He also is clearly not a shortstop, with neither the footwork nor the arm strength to stick there. He did draw a walk in the last game of the series, and overall he doesn\u2019t chase stuff well out of the zone. That approach can buy a young hitter time to develop in other areas, but he has to figure out how to close off his many holes to have something other than a high walk rate. I don\u2019t see an everyday player here.<\/p>\n
Making sense of MLBPA’s proposed rule changes<\/p>\n
Keith Law<\/p>\n
Eric Hartman a strong late-round find<\/p>\n
Eric Hartman was Atlanta\u2019s 2024 20th-round pick out of Okotoks, Alberta, just outside of Calgary, which is not exactly a hotbed of young baseball talent. Credit to Atlanta\u2019s scouting group, however, as Hartman looks like at least an everyday center fielder, maybe more depending on whether his power surge is real or a product of some good home parks and the South Atlantic League\u2019s juiced ball this year.<\/p>\n
Hartman is second in the league with 20 homers, and he\u2019s second \u2014 behind John Gil \u2014 with 31 stolen bases. The speed is real, and he covers a lot of ground in center. The power might not be, at least not to that extent, just based on the body and swing. I got an 0 for 5 from him across two games with two walks and two HBP. He has good bat speed but not elite, and he doesn\u2019t get a ton from his lower half. He does whiff a little more than I\u2019d like, especially on fastballs.<\/p>\n
I do think he\u2019s an everyday player, and even if the power isn\u2019t real right now, he only turned 20 in mid-June, so he has some time to get stronger and maybe get his hips and legs more involved to drive the ball more.<\/p>\n
Owen Carey and John Gil show promise<\/p>\n
Outfielder Owen Carey was Atlanta\u2019s 2024 15th-round pick, taken out of a New Hampshire high school (by an area scout that Atlanta let go a few weeks later, thanks for everything). Carey missed over a month this year because of a heel injury, but he\u2019s back, and looks stronger than he did last year. He has good bat speed, with enough pitch recognition to see a path for him to be at least an extra outfielder. He\u2019s hitting .266\/.336\/.468 through 33 games, again perhaps getting a boost from the league in power \u2014 he homered to dead center on a 93-mph fastball at Lakewood (not a strong hitter\u2019s park).<\/p>\n
Shortstop John Gil has a lot of ability \u2014 he probably has the best total package of tools of the Rome quartet mentioned here \u2014 but probably the least feel for the game. He\u2019s very physical for 5-foot-11-ish and an above-average or better runner underway (but not out of the box). He has bat speed and seems to pick up fastballs. It\u2019s all the secondary stuff that\u2019s lacking \u2014 he doesn\u2019t have great instincts in the field, he doesn\u2019t seem to pick up spin, and he didn\u2019t run out a ground ball to third, which in A-ball is hardly a sure out. He could end up the best player this lineup given some time and repetitions, but he has a ways to go in converting his athleticism into baseball value.<\/p>\n
Scouting Orioles prospect JT Quinn<\/p>\n
Baltimore took right-hander JT Quinn in the second round last year, 11 picks after they selected Joseph Dzierwa, making the pair the two highest-drafted pitchers of the Mike Elias era. Dzierwa is already in Double A after a dominant start to the year in High-A Frederick, while Quinn is still, as of this writing, in High A, but pitching extremely well.<\/p>\n
![\"May](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/USATSI_26247933-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n JT Quinn pitched collegiately at Georgia. (Gary Cosby Jr. \/ USA Today via Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
I caught Quinn at Wilmington a few weeks ago, where he was 93-98 with two above-average breaking balls in his mid-80s slider and mid-70s curveball. He varies the shape and angle of the slider, while the curveball is very sharp if a little slow by the radar gun. He does throw a changeup at 88-91, but it\u2019s more like a mediocre two-seamer.<\/p>\n
His arm is really fast, and he went right after the Blue Rocks hitters, going 6 2\/3 scoreless innings on 74 pitches. (He left with Frederick up 5-0; Wilmington walked it off in 13 innings, 9-8.) Quinn is going to need something better for lefties. His platoon split right now is small, but he\u2019s getting away with working out of the zone to them and that\u2019s not going to last at higher levels. Otherwise it\u2019s mid-rotation starter all the way.<\/p>\n
Notes on 2025 draft picks Eli Willits, Anthony Eyanson and Mitch Voit<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen Eli Willits a few times now for Wilmington, and the 2025 No. 1 pick is, in fact, very, very good. He\u2019s clearly stronger than he was last year \u2014 he looks 10-15 pounds bigger \u2014 and also has shown a much better approach at the plate than I think anyone expected. I haven\u2019t seen any of the six homers he\u2019s hit in 20 games in High A, but I\u2019ve seen hard contact the other way. He\u2019s also easily a 70 defender at short.<\/p>\n
I caught Boston right-hander Anthony Eyanson\u2019s worst start of the year on June 9; it was bad enough that they pushed him back from Tuesday to Sunday in the following series. The 2025 third-round pick had been up to 99 this season, but on this particular Tuesday night at Double-A Reading, he was 90-94 and had real trouble throwing strikes, ending the night with five walks in 2 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
He hasn\u2019t walked more than three in any other start this year, and has five walks total since I saw him across 14 2\/3 innings. The curveball was his best pitch, 78-79, sharp, nearly 12\/6, and also the pitch he could most easily throw for a strike that night. He\u2019s pitched three times since that outing, with much better results, although he\u2019s still more low- to mid-90s than high-90s.<\/p>\n
I saw Mets prospect Mitch Voit play one game at Wilmington. New York\u2019s first selection (38th pick) last year is hitting just .245\/.351\/.412 in High A, which is surprising given what I saw of him. His BABIP is very low, at .262, but he\u2019s not making a ton of weak contact or hitting it on the ground excessively. He gets good rotation in his swing and finishes with plenty of loft. His performance has been trending up, and I think that uptick will continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This past week, I took in a couple of High-A games between Rome (Atlanta organization) and Jersey Shore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[3960,3966,3959,49,48,462,475,82,3968],"class_list":["post-786011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-sports","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}