IBC

Grant Taylor tossed two scoreless innings and picked up the save against the Giants on Saturday.

Taylor picked up his first save last Sunday and the White Sox haven’t officially handed him the closer’s job quite yet. Maybe his outing on Saturday will change that as Taylor threw two perfect innings with two strikeouts to preserve a 1-0 victory for the White Sox. Taylor is worth an add for any team that needs saves right now because he certainly has the talent to run with the job.

https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/grant-taylor/271790

16. Eli Serrano III, LF

Drafted: 4th Round, 2024 from NC State (NYM)
Age 22.2 Height 6′ 5″ Weight 201 Bat / Thr L / L FV 40+

Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Hit Raw Power Game Power Run Fielding Throw
35/55 40/50 40/45 50/50 30/40 40

Serrano’s parents were athletes at Stetson and his dad was the Giants’ second rounder in 1998. This was a draft-eligible sophomore who, at 6-foot-5, struck out in just 12.8% of his plate appearances in his draft spring and posted a 95% in-zone contact rate. He’s responded well to a fairly aggressive High-A assignment to start 2025 and has a 131 wRC+ as of list publication. Serrano’s current swing lacks impact, but he’s barely 22 and is a wispy 6-foot-5 guy who has room for a lot of strength. The way he bends at the waist to alter the plane of his swing is odd but exciting, and it helps him cover a ton of the zone. He’s vulnerable to back foot breaking stuff but is otherwise a fairly complete hitter whose path to impact is via strength gains.

Serrano’s defensive fit isn’t clear. He played first base as a freshman and center field as a sophomore. His look in center, or any outfield position for that matter, is one of discomfort; he turns routine fly balls into an adventure. It’s worth trying to force things in the outfield for a while longer because Serrano is so inexperienced out there, but a return to first base might be his eventual outcome. If Serrano gets strong enough, it won’t matter where he plays.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/new-york-me ... prospects/

Cam Schlittler has emerged as the top pitching prospect in the New York Yankees organization. His ability to overpower hitters is a big reason why. In four starts since being promoted to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on June 3, the 6-foot-6, 225-pound right-hander has logged a 1.69 ERA and a 40.2% strikeout rate over 21-and-a-third innings. Counting his 53 frames at Double-A Somerset, Schlittler has a 2.18 ERA and a 33.0% strikeout rate on the season.

The 2022 seventh-rounder out of Northeastern University is averaging 96.5 mph with his heater, but more than velocity plays into the offering’s effectiveness. As Eric Longenhagen wrote back in January, Schlittler’s “size and arm angle create downhill plane on his mid-90s fastball akin to a runaway truck ramp, while the backspinning nature of the pitch also creates riding life.”

I asked the 24-year-old Walpole, Massachusetts native about the characteristics our lead prospect analyst described in his report.

“Arm slot-wise it’s nothing crazy,” Schlittler said in our spring training conversation. “I’m more of a high-three-quarters kind of guy, but what I didn’t realize until looking at video a couple months ago is that I have really quick arm speed. My mechanics are kind of slow, and then my arm path is really fast, so the ball kind of shoots out a little bit. With my height, release point— I get good extension — and how fast my arm is moving, the ball gets on guys quicker than they might expect.”

Schlittler feels that mechanical changes he began making in 2023, and continued into last season, not only allow him to get down the mound better, but also give his fastball more explosiveness. Calling the movement profile “ride-cut” — cut-ride is the more commonly-used term — he said that his high-octane heater “can kind of stay up, and kind of keep going up.”

The horizontal is to his liking.

“Ride is great — definitely with my slot — but I think a lot of people undervalue ride-cut,” the towering righty told me. “Some people see cut and want to get rid of it, whereas I think the combination of the two is part of why my fastball is so effective. And I’ve been able to add some vert, too. I adjusted my grip slightly — I moved it over slightly to the right, just a slight offset with the seam-orientation — and that added a little vert. But I love the cut-ride. They love the cut-ride. That’s all that really matters.”

Schlittler threw six shutout innings against the Worcester Red Sox in his last start, allowing just two hits and one walk, with nine strikeouts. The Baseball America Top 100 prospect K’d Kristian Campbell three times.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/sunday-note ... -rotation/

12. Kyle Karros, 3B, Rockies

Team: Double-A Hartford (Rockies)
Age: 22
Why He’s Here: .348/.423/.783 (8-for-23), 6 R, 4 2B, 0 3B, 2 HR, 3 RBIs, 3 BB, 5 SO

The Scoop: When he’s been healthy, Karros has been a steady force in the middle of the Hartford lineup. The UCLA alum and son of former big leaguer Eric Karros was identified by scouts during spring training as an up-arrow prospect, and those predictions are looking like bull’s-eyes. Karros missed a month on the injured list but has shown throughout June that the time away didn’t leave any rust. Karros’ excellent week put a capper on an outstanding month that saw him hit .329/.413/.519 with a pair of home runs with equal success against lefties and righties. (JN)

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories ... t-6-30-25/

Kyle Karros, 3B, Colorado Rockies, 22, AA

Karros has hit and hit some more this year. This weekend saw Karros produce three multi-hit games, which included two home runs and three doubles. He is now up to 17 doubles, a triple, and four home runs on the year with a .335/.437/.521 slash line.

He is one of the best gloves at the hot corner of any prospect, and he has strong contact skills. His 6’5”/220 frame gives off the vibe that he should have big power, and even though he is not showing it in the home run department, Karros does have improving exit velocities that sit around MLB average.

The contact is impressive, and Karros has some of the more impressive launch angles among Minor League hitters, creating barrels consistently. I think Karros is one of the more underrated prospects in the Minors and one that could wind up being a very good Major Leaguer.

https://www.thedynastydugout.com/p/mino ... es-week-13

Eduardo Beltre, OF, Twins:

This season has been a struggle for Beltre. His batting average has been above .200 for just two days of the Florida Complex League season, and he's had to work hard to get his OPS above .600.

But as the season winds down, Beltre is starting to heat up. He went 2-for-4 with a home run, a stolen base and two runs scored on Monday. It's his second home run of the month and his fourth multi-hit game. He's hitting .229/.316/.458 in June, which has raised his overall slash line to .179/.302/.349. Beltre hit .326/.453/.618 last season in the Dominican Summer League.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1 ... hFrHqmqJNq [BA]

Eduardo Beltre, OF, Minnesota Twins, 18, CPX

Few entered the complex with more hype, and part of that is on me. Beltre looked incredible this spring in several looks, following a very impressive DSL, where the underlying data was impressive.

Few also stumbled out of the gate harder, especially considering Beltre homered in his first game at the complex. In his first 15 games, Beltre struck out in 30 percent of plate appearances and was slashing a smooth .085/.241/.213. To say he has turned it around would be an understatement.

Since late May, in his last 18 games, Beltre has 15 hits, including six doubles and two home runs, one of which was hit yesterday. He has struck out just 12 times, good for a 16.9 percent mark, and has even stolen eight bases.

Beltre is on the shorter side, listed as 5’11”, but considering he is still young, the frame is already strong with room to grow. With his hands high and his front foot slightly open, Beltre uses a leg kick to get back square and coil his body. He drops his back shoulder and creates natural loft in his swing with good bat speed.

https://www.thedynastydugout.com/p/comp ... 7ce229e6a6

Grant Taylor ripped off a couple of 96 mph cutters during his two-inning save on Saturday, which is such an exciting concept that it can easily distract from the grunt work for which he's using them.

"We're using it more as a way to get back into counts and offset some things, but not try to put away guys too much with the cutter; versus righties it's going to be more contact than swing-and-miss," Katz said. "He's had a ton of success with it, but hitters up here will start to run it if he tries to live off the cutter. When they're gearing up to a fastball and it cuts back into their bat path, especially when he's up in the zone. That's kind of what happened with [Marcus] Semien in Texas."

Despite the wide, starter-like arsenal that Taylor has been so fond of developing, there's been a clear shift toward leaning on his oft-triple-digit fastball since moving to the major league bullpen, with an emphasis on locating it upstairs for whiffs (he's thrown it 58 percent of the time through his 10 big league innings). If the fastball is now the headliner and the cutter is a strike-grabber, Katz and the Sox are banking on Taylor's curveball becoming the putaway breaking ball that works to hitters of either hand.

Taylor throwing a kick change is a cool concept. In practice, it's currently shelved.

"The curveball is one of the best in baseball for movement, velocity, all of the above," Katz said. "We haven't really talked about the changeup right now because there is such a plethora of good options."

Not to be any more patronizing than usual, but it sounds as if the best way to discern Taylor's future usage is to look at the opposing lineup. The Sox don't generate enough save opportunities for "closer" to be Taylor's role, even if this coaching staff believed in such rigid slotting for their bullpen.

But unless there's a left-on-left matchup that takes precedence, Taylor will likely be facing the heart of the opposing batting order at the latest point in the game they're set to come up. If it seems like he's entering the game for the bottom of the order, it's probably because he's lined up for two innings of work. If someone else is facing the heart of the opposing order late with a lead, it probably means Taylor isn't available. We wondered how long it would take for him to assume the role of the top leverage arm in the bullpen, and the answer appears to be 10 innings.

Honestly, maybe it took less.

https://soxmachine.com/2025/07/white-so ... ral_thread