Unowned
Yasel Antuna, IF
Edit player ✎
Baseball Reference →
FanGraphs →
MLB →
Scouting report
Antuna hasn't put any kind of public statistical performance on paper since 2018 because he missed most of '19 rehabbing from TJ and dealing with lower-body injuries. Even though he was at the alt site last year, the industry did not have widespread looks at Antuna because the Nationals opted out of alternate site video sharing, per Baseball America. So within the last year, Antuna has only been seen at 2020 instructs and working out (but not playing) with Licey in the Dominican Republic over the winter. It's fair to think the prolonged layoff from real games would make it hard for teams to truly consider him as a Rule 5 selection but Washington added him to their 40-man, just in case. Eyeball looks in the fall of 2020 were fair. Antuna has gotten thicker and stronger than before and is now in the bat-first infielder mold, likely to be passable at a combination of second and third rather than be an everyday shortstop. We don't think there's huge physical ceiling here; the cement on the frame here is pretty dry. There are data-driven aspects of Antuna's profile that are hazy because of the lack of performance, but his 2020 fall eyeball report reads like a good role player. This is a switch-hitter who swings with lift and power from the left side of the plate, and has a shorter, contact-driven look with line drive spray toward the gaps from the right side. Antuna will punish you for missing toward the middle of the plate; the rest of the time, he's throwing the bat head at the ball and doing strength-driven damage. He seems able to identify fastball balls and strikes but is apt to swing over breaking balls, and this is where the data performance piece would be more telling and reliable than scattered looks on the backfields. There's risk Antuna is an incomplete offensive player but unless his breaking ball recognition proves to be so bad that he can't hit at all, he projects as the long end of an infield platoon. (Alternate site, Fall Instructional League)