{"id":229756,"date":"2026-03-21T06:12:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/229756\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T06:12:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:12:48","slug":"what-im-seeing-from-mlb-prospects-guardians-arms-denzer-guzman-impresses-ethan-holliday-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/229756\/","title":{"rendered":"What I\u2019m seeing from MLB prospects: Guardians arms, Denzer Guzman impresses, Ethan Holliday struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dispatch No. 1 from the desert, where it\u2019s 100-plus degrees and game times are moving to the mornings and evenings so no one dies on the field \u2026<\/p>\n

The first Cactus League Spring Breakout Game took place Thursday morning, as Cleveland Guardians prospects headed to Tempe Diablo Stadium to play the Los Angeles Angels prospects team. Cleveland brought just about all of their prospects who aren\u2019t in big-league camp, rotating the starters out after six innings to let a second group get at least one at-bat apiece.<\/p>\n

Their only extra-base hit came from DH Wuilfredo Antunez, who wasn\u2019t on their top 20<\/a> this winter. He homered to right off a hanging curveball in the fourth inning. Most of their bigger names didn\u2019t do much: Ralphy Velazquez was 0 for 3, punching out on 96 middle-up and rolling over later on a 100 mph fastball, catcher Cooper Ingle walked twice but struggled badly with his throwing to second, Jaison Chourio saw 15 pitches in three plate appearances, with a walk and a strikeout. Even Angel Genao, their No. 1 prospect and No. 33 overall<\/a>, just had an ordinary day, with a walk, a strikeout and a groundout to first, although I was pleased to get an above-average run time on him.<\/p>\n

The Guardians\u2019 pitching stood out, however. Right-hander Joey Oakie was No. 84 on my top 100 this winter, and he\u2019s taken another step forward already. He was 96-99 in his two innings with a new sweeper and changeup along with the slider\/cutter that was his main secondary pitch last year; the sweeper might be a 60 (on the 20-80 scouting scale), and the fastball misses bats in and on top of the zone. It\u2019s a long, fast arm, and because he was struggling to get to a consistent landing spot, he yanked several pitches to his glove side and didn\u2019t throw enough strikes overall (56 percent).<\/p>\n

Right-hander Braylon Doughty followed him and showed more pitches than I\u2019d seen from him last year, although his main weapon, the mid-80s curveball, had backed up slightly. He\u2019s throwing a cutter and a changeup right now, and is still 92-96. He struggled a little with his command of everything, eventually giving up a homer when he left a breaking ball right over the heart of the plate. I still like both of these guys quite a bit, to be clear \u2014 both showed premium stuff with starter deliveries.<\/p>\n

Lefty Josh Hartle came over to Cleveland from Pittsburgh in the Spencer Horwitz trade, and naturally, the Guardians have helped him add some velocity already. He was 91-93 in his two innings, throwing a lot of breaking balls, both a slider and a cutter, and I don\u2019t think he showed the changeup at all even though that was his best pitch when he was an amateur. He\u2019s way more interesting at that higher velocity and with functional breaking stuff that makes him less dependent on the changeup and on deception.<\/p>\n

The Guardians started Yorman G\u00f3mez, an undersized right-hander from Venezuela who throws a lot of strikes but didn\u2019t show anything plus beyond his velocity. He was 95-97 from a high three-quarters slot, coming back over his front leg a little when he lands, with an average slider at 87-89 and a true curveball I think he threw just once. He\u2019s had success up through Double A, although I don\u2019t quite see how he\u2019s striking so many guys out with this arsenal.<\/p>\n

\"GOODYEAR,<\/p>\n

\n Nelson Rada can really run and has a solid hit tool, but he hasn\u2019t developed power yet. (Chris Bernacchi \/ Diamond Images via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The Angels had two of their top three pitching prospects on the roster in right-handers Tyler Bremner (the No. 2 pick from last year\u2019s draft) and Chase Shores (who closed out LSU\u2019s championship in June), but neither appeared in the game, so as a result, only four of their top 10 prospects<\/a> ended up playing. Outfielder Nelson Rada, who is second in their system behind Bremner, led off and played the entire game, bunting for a hit in his first at-bat and collecting a single on a soft line drive the other way off a 99 mph fastball. He\u2019s pretty much the same player he\u2019s always been \u2014 he can run, he\u2019s going to stick in center, he can hit but doesn\u2019t have much power.<\/p>\n

Shortstop Denzer Guzman was No. 3 on my Angels list this offseason and was responsible for the only runs the Angels scored with his home run in the bottom of the ninth off Doughty. It came on the ninth pitch of the at-bat, when Doughty tried to freeze him on a breaking ball and left it right over the heart of the plate. Guzman hit it off the left-field foul pole with an exit velo of 105.8 mph, one of two balls he hit at 100-plus on the day. He saw 19 pitches in total in his four at-bats and made an impressive stop on a groundball to his left, although he didn\u2019t have time to get the runner at first.<\/p>\n

Third baseman Gabriel Davalillo was 19th on my list \u2026 and that was too high. I said at the time he had \u201ca thicker body,\u201d and he\u2019s gotten bigger since then. He\u2019s 18 years old and is already too heavy to play anywhere on the field. I\u2019m not sure what you do with a player like that \u2014 unless he\u2019s Tony Gwynn with the stick, he\u2019s not a prospect.<\/p>\n

Angels pitchers did show some velocity over the course of the game, although there wasn\u2019t much actual pitching. Right-hander Dylan Jordan (No. 12) has seen a big velo jump, sitting 94-98 with an average slider at 82-84. He has a long arm action and stays very online to the plate, allowing him to work in the zone. I\u2019d have him over all of the other pitchers who followed him in this game.<\/p>\n

Righty Trey Gregory-Alford (No. 8) was 96-100 with no life, and his 81-83 mph curveball is really easy to see out of his hand. He had maybe 30 command and gave up all four Cleveland runs, with two walks followed by a homer. Right-hander Nate Snead (No. 18) was 96-100, also without much life, also without much command, along with a short slider at 89-91. Chris Cortez (No. 20) sat at 98, faced five batters, struck out three and walked two. Righty Najer Victor is back from pitching for Great Britain in the World Baseball Classic and was 94-98 with a slider at 85-88, coming from a very high slot without a lot of life on the fastball.<\/p>\n

Without Bremner, Shores or lefty Johnny Slawinski, it\u2019s not a promising group of pitching prospects for the Angels, with Jordan the only one I would project as a potential starter.<\/p>\n

Ethan Holliday still struggling in Rockies camp; Roldy Brito impresses<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, I checked in on the Colorado Rockies\u2019 Low-A team to see two of their top prospects<\/a>: shortstop Ethan Holliday and infielder\/outfielder Roldy Brito.<\/p>\n

Holliday still doesn\u2019t look good, unfortunately, as his bat speed is just fair, and he had a lot of trouble in the field. He looks like he doesn\u2019t see the ball well at the plate or on defense; he flinched once on a practice throw from the catcher that second baseman Ashly Andujar caught, then flubbed a routine play to his left at shortstop. He did hit one ball somewhat hard, golfing a single off the right field wall that maybe should have been a double if he\u2019d run harder out of the box. He also still rolls that front ankle pretty hard through contact, not too dissimilar from what Carson Benge had and corrected last spring. I\u2019m concerned about this one.<\/p>\n

Brito looked really good, however, running close to plus and showing excellent bat speed as well as some selectivity at the plate. He does set up very wide and comes unmoored sometimes because he swings so hard, but there\u2019s feel for contact already, and there\u2019s going to be power here, especially if the Rockies can get him to stay more balanced, maybe closing him up slightly before his leg kick.<\/p>\n

Outfielder Cristian Arguelles, who hit .422\/.528\/.652 in the DSL last year with 34 walks and 25 strikeouts in 52 games, showed some real selectivity in this game, taking multiple close pitches while walking twice and then taking a pitch away down the left field line for a double. He was in a corner with Brito in center, so I didn\u2019t get any read on whether Arguelles could stick up the middle other than that he\u2019s not much of a runner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dispatch No. 1 from the desert, where it\u2019s 100-plus degrees and game times are moving to the mornings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,3672,3673,2866,1334],"class_list":["post-229756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-colorado-rockies","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-mlb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}