PIT
Jesus Sanchez, OF
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Scouting report
We've basically had 70 Sánchez plate appearances to watch over the last 12 months. He was at the 2020 alt site and got about 30 PA in the big leagues, the first of his career, then played pretty consistently for Toros del Este in the Dominican Winter League before a limited 2021 big league spring run due to a groin injury that shut him down in mid-March. He is a flawed but super-talented player with among the most electric bat speed in pro baseball and a huge lefty cut that produces some epic home runs, though probably not enough to make him an everyday player even though he's talented enough to be one. I, like much of the industry, am scared of corner-only prospects who clearly lack plate discipline, and Sánchez is one. He's run a 6.5% career walk rate and tends to get himself out by making poor swing decisions. Additionally, Sánchez's swing has not fully actualized for power (a seven degree average launch angle in 2019, a groundball rate around 50%), so he's fighting an uphill battle to get to his huge raw juice in games since he's either swinging at pitches he can't do anything with or failing to lift a lot of the ones he can. Despite this, Sánchez has performed statistically so far: he's a career .291/.337/.452 hitter, though he has begun to show cracks at Double-A and above, where he's slugging under .400 in 135 games. Again, if you watch Sánchez's bat speed, you'll find it ludicrous that he's not hitting for power. He hits balls very hard (50% of his 2019 balls in play were hit 95 mph or above) and he has feel for contact, just not for contact in the air. A pro scout recently said to me, "The thing about hitting the ball really hard on the ground is that it's still really hard, and difficult to turn into an out." It's likely Sánchez does enough to be a platoon option. (Alternate Site, MLB, LIDOM)