Scouting Adael Amador, Spencer Jones, and more Rockies and Yankees prospects — Keith Law

The Rockies scooped me by recalling second base prospect Adael Amador over the weekend, a few days after I caught up with him and the Double-A Hartford Yard Goats in a game at Somerset (Yankees’ Double-A club). The promotion was a surprise, as Amador was hitting just .194/.337/.329 for Hartford despite a stretch where he’d hit six homers in nine games, but the Rockies didn’t have better options ahead of him and he was already on their 40-man roster.

Adael Amador: first game, first at-bat, first pitch.

First Major League hit! 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/8tMZWh1tUe

— MLB (@MLB) June 9, 2024

Amador had performed well for his age the past two years in A-ball, with very strong walk and contact rates, but the underlying tools don’t point to big upside even with the impressive performance. He doesn’t chase out of the zone much at all, and he’s aggressive in the zone because he can make so much contact. The issue for him is that it’s not good contact, even with those six homers in the past two weeks, one of which I saw. He’s not that strong and his bat path is too erratic, so he comes at the ball from all sorts of angles and often puts the ball on the ground.

He did show bat speed against a whole mess of Somerset arms — almost none of whom threw more than 92 mph — and showed a particular skill for fouling off pitches with two strikes that I think is his strongest attribute. If nothing else, it should buy him more time as a hitter to see if he can improve his contact quality and/or get a more consistent path to the ball. It’s a busy approach, though, and I could say he showed me four or five different swings over the course of the game.

There was one swing that should give you hope if you’re a Rockies fan, though. Yes, he homered off a 92 mph fastball right at the letters, not a pitch he’s going to see much in the majors, but it was by far the best swing he put on a ball all game. I think he identified the pitch very early — it could have been a lucky guess but I’m going with the more positive explanation — so he took a bigger stride and then unloaded, rotating his hips and coming up through the ball so that it left his bat around 30 degrees (my estimate, off video). He didn’t swing like that the rest of the night or any other time I’ve seen him, but if you can do it once you might be able to do it again.

Amador was a shortstop until this year, when the Rockies moved him exclusively to second base, where he’d played 23 games in 2023. He’s still very much a work in progress at second. He lets the ball play him too often, and he flubbed a playable popup in short right field. He was never likely to stay at short but I think there’s a small chance he ends up in left field.

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Sterlin Thompson’s bat speed lagging

I had outfielder and left-handed hitter Sterlin Thompson as the Rockies’ top prospect coming into the year, but he’s struggled as well, and he took some hacks that were absolutely scary, cutting right through 90-92 in the zone from a right-hander. Thompson was the 31st pick in 2022 out of the University of Florida. He is hitting .249/.314/.358 as a 23-year-old in Double A, with just two homers.

I saw Thompson in the AFL last year and he was one of the best hitters there in swing, approach, and results. Now his bat is late and he looks like he’s dragging the bat head through the zone. It’s just not the same guy.

Yanquiel Fernandez needs patience

Rockies outfielder Yanquiel Fernandez also made my top 100 coming into the season, and he is exactly the same guy, for better and for worse. He hit everything hard, but also, he hit everything, and sometimes it’s OK not to swing, Yanquiel, I promise.

He’s hitting .283/.331/.421 with just 12 walks in 176 plate appearances, and frankly, I would like to see the pitcher who is capable of walking him. He did take some pitches on the night, but they were way out of the zone. He swung at every single pitch he saw in the zone or just outside of it, 12 of them in total. I was a little disappointed that he didn’t run out a single groundball on the night. They were routine outs, but minor-league infielders make a lot of mistakes on routine outs.

Spencer Jones seeking better zone coverage

Spencer Jones was the main attraction in the Somerset lineup, as the Yankees’ 2022 first-rounder is an imposing figure in the box, but he’s struggled badly this year as a 23-year-old in Double A, hitting .228/.309/.367 through Saturday’s game with a 34 percent strikeout rate.

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Jones also hits the ball extremely hard when he hits it, noticeable even to the ear. His groundout to short in the first inning was unusually loud for a groundout to short. He just hasn’t figured out how to manage his giant strike zone, or lay off the stuff pitchers are naturally going to use against a 6-foot-7 hitter — fastballs up and/or in, sliders down and/or away. He hasn’t figured out how to cover the whole zone, or to stop expanding for breaking stuff. It is huge raw power, and he’s a solid athlete who can play center, so there are strong underlying tools here. He just has to boost that hit tool, and by a lot.

Ben Cowles emerging as a legitimate prospect

Somerset shortstop Ben Cowles was the Yankees’ 2021 10th-round pick in 2021 out of the University of Maryland. After a nondescript year in High A last year as a 23-year-old (too old for the level), he looked like he was probably just an organizational player. He’s a prospect now, though, as he’s staying back better at the plate, so he’s making better decisions and better contact. He’s already hit more doubles this year (20) than he did all of last year (18), and he’s cut his strikeout rate from 27.4 percent to 17.8 percent.

I don’t want to get too ahead of myself on a 53-game sample, but there’s at least some utility infielder floor here, and I was pretty impressed by how much looser and better he looked at the plate.

(Photo of Amador in his debut: Scott Kane / Getty Images)