{"id":671202,"date":"2026-05-29T01:34:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/671202\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T01:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:34:20","slug":"futures-on-the-corner-promotions-looming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/671202\/","title":{"rendered":"Futures on the Corner: Promotions Looming?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the first Futures on the Corner. This will become a weekly piece where I, Matt Seese, will examine the ins and outs of Cleveland<\/a>\u2019s ever developing farm system. I currently do work as a prospects scout and evaluator for Prospects Live and have thoroughly enjoyed covering our farm system here on Covering The Corner.<\/p>\n

Today, I wanted to throw out more of a blanket piece to kick this off: what promotions are coming?<\/p>\n

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We\u2019ll start down in Hill City.<\/p>\n

A-BALL<\/p>\n

OF JUNEIKER CACERES | 18 | L\/L
Caceres is not the 168 pounds MiLB.com<\/a> lists him at. With a noticeable physical development, Caceres has seen his added muscle shrink areas of concern up in the zone. Combine that with some of the better plate discipline in the Guardians\u2019 system, above average bat speed and EVs as well as a walk rate pushing 4% north of his strikeout rate, and Caceres is tailor made for a promotion to Lake County sooner rather than later. Caceres continues to be among the younger players at his level, and though the power numbers are slowly starting to come around, this kind of an approach is beyond his years.<\/p>\n

LHP NELSON KELJO | 22
Keljo was a sixth round pick in last year\u2019s draft out of Oregon State. At 6-foot-4, 230 pounds, Keljo is physically built to handle a starter\u2019s workload, and he\u2019s done exactly that thus far. A concern of mine with Keljo would be his command sustaining being stretched out from reliever to starter from college to the pros. Thus far, it\u2019s largely not been an issue. Keljo has been efficient and at times dominant, largely carried by his fastball that sports some capable ride.<\/p>\n

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LHP HARRISON BODENDORF | 22
Bodendorf was also part of the \u201825 Draft class for the Guards, selected in the 10th round at pick 312. Drafted at 6-foot-5, 180 pounds, there\u2019s some physical projecting to do here. Bodendorf is not going to overwhelm anyone, but up to this point, it hasn\u2019t mattered. His upper 80s, occasionally low 90s heater is paired with a devastating changeup that\u2019s currently inducing an incredible whiff rate and drawing weak contact when batters are lucky enough to get the bat to it. There\u2019s definitely upside here despite the lack of velo. I think if any org finds that extra life here, it\u2019s Cleveland, but some glove-side secondaries need to come along here for this profile to work long-term.<\/p>\n

HIGH-A<\/p>\n

AARON WALTON | 22 | R\/R
Matt Dallas, you genius. Walton has cleaned up some lower half mechanical issues and is now getting his whole body in sync with his swing. It has resulted in a tremendous start to the \u201826 season that\u2019s seen Walton produce some high end power. Walton is lifting the ball pull-side at a tremendous rate, and though there\u2019s still some swing and miss here and the overall passivity within the zone concerns me, he\u2019s damaging the ball better than just about anyone else in the Midwest League with an EV90 north of 107.<\/p>\n

RHP BRAYLON DOUGHTY | 20
How\u2019s this for aggressive? At just 20 years old, Doughty would become among the youngest arms in Double-A if what I\u2019m asking for here happened this season. That being said, I believe if anyone is ready for it, it\u2019s him. Doughty is the most polished prep arm the Guardians have had in their system since I started tracking prospects. His fastball continues to improve and find a stable velocity in the low-90s band, and should it find that next tick up in velo, he goes from mid to back-end rotation arm to SP2 ceiling. Should this happen, I\u2019d anticipate him getting touched up a bit as he begins facing 24+ year olds with consistency, but it will further develop his sequencing, and that can only be a positive.<\/p>\n

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IF LUKE HILL | 22 | R\/R
Besides Walton, there\u2019s a few Lake County bats worthy of this, but none more than Luke Hill. Hill has been a bit of a revelation to the farm system. Drafted primarily off of his keen eye and quality swing decisions, Hill has seen that translate into a very real ability to do damage. Hill\u2019s nine home runs at the moment of this typing is more than he ever hit at Ole Miss, he\u2019s running an EV90 north of 105, and above all else, he doesn\u2019t possess the ever concerning passivity that is currently at a ground swell in this system. Hill is selectively aggressive, attacks pitches in the zone, and is now driving them with legit pop. Not only should Hill get promoted, but he should be pushing for the top 10 of Guards prospects lists.<\/p>\n

DOUBLE-A<\/p>\n

RP CARTER RUSTAD | 25 | R\/R
Rustad was acquired from the Orioles for Johnathan Rodriguez back in late March, and some of the best stuff of his career thus far has come in Akron. Rustad throws from a sub-25 degree slot with great extension. A three-pitch pitcher, he generates capable iVB on his fastball, typically around 17 inches, and ~8 inches of arm-side run while sitting 93-95 with the heater. He\u2019ll work a solid slider off of that against righties and a changeup to lefties that gets over a foot of arm-side tail. At 25 and not R5 eligible for another year, a promotion to Columbus where Cleveland can get a clean look at him without any 40-man issues should he pitch well feels ideal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to the first Futures on the Corner. This will become a weekly piece where I, Matt Seese,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[292884,292885,852,36414,292883,363,99,148086],"class_list":["post-671202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-areas-of-concern","tag-caceres","tag-cleveland","tag-farm-system","tag-matt-seese","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-strikeout-rate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}