It's The Bigs Blog #12 - Who are the next stars in MLB and why can't I see them now?

 In years past, we've seen many of the top stars in MLB have their service time manipulated by a major league club in hopes of being able to have one extra year of control over the player before either signing him long-term or cutting ties in some capacity.  The most prominent of these players was Kris Bryant who had his service time manipulated for a few weeks back in 2015 so the Cubs could have the extra year of control.  He sued the Cubs and lost but the issue was made mainstream and eventually changed in the most recent CBA betwen the MLBPA and MLB itself.

That new CBA may have given incentive for the ball clubs to have one major rookie up on opening day in hopes of gaining an extra draft pick if that player wins Rookie Of The Year honors.  Brand new for the 2023 season, we saw some of the following names up with the big clubs on opening day:

Gunnar Henderson, INF Baltimore Orioles
Ezequiel Tovar, SS Colorado Rockies
Anthony Volpe, SS New York Yankees
Corbin Carroll, OF Arizona Diamondbacks
Hunter Brown, SP Houston Astros
Josh Jung, 3B Texas Rangers

and many more I'm not listing here.  The issue, however, arises if a team has more than one player they believe can be rookie of the year and don't want to risk the opportunity of having an extra year tacked onto the player's rookie contract.  So that begs the question.  With this new incentive, which teams are still finding a way to manipulate the next crop of big stars?  Let's dive into as many as I can find here.

Jordan Walker, 3B/OF, St Louis Cardinals - Probably the biggest head-scratcher of the first month of the season was seeing Jordan Walker -- easily the Cardinals top prospect coming into 2023 -- sent to the minors after 20 games in April.  From March 30th to April 23rd, Walker was a stalwart of the Cardinals lineup and put together a 12 game hitting streak to begin the season.  For 16 of the 20 games he played in April, he accumulated at least one hit and was hitting .274 on the season before he was shipped down to Louisville for "defensive seasoning."  He returned on June 2nd and has hit .337 since while the St Louis Cardinals have wallowed in the NL Central basement.  It begs the question why bother putting this kid through another month of seasoning when the bat obviously was ready to play?

Eury Perez, SP Miami Marlins -  In 186 innings across three different levels, Eury Perez showed the makings of being the next ace of the Marlins system.  He was taken under the wing of NL Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara during spring training and everything seemed to make sense that he would be the 5th starter out of spring.  Then April came and Eury found himself not in Jacksonville at AAA, but rather Pensacola at AA.  His 31 innings there were enough to get the call to jump AAA and begin dominating at the MLB level.  He's, so far, been the most surprising rookie pitcher of 2023 but there's a sinking feeling when I watch him that two or three mediocre starts could have him back down to Jacksonville.  Especially when we see players like Trevor Rogers, Edward Cabrera and Johnny Cueto come off the IL.

The Mets Big 4 - There are four large prospects in the New York Mets system that have made things very murky for that organization leading into the 2023 season.  Eduardo Escobar (traded just hours before this writing) was the veteran presence blocking top corner infield prospect Brett Baty.  Baty's bat hasn't shown the prolific power that he was showing in AAA that forced the Mets hand just yet, but he's far from embarrassed himself to the tune of a .240 BA as of writing.  Francisco Alvarez was the top prospect behind the plate, and arguably of any position, leading into the 2023 season and it took an injury from Omar Narvaez in order to get him in the lineup.  Tomas Nido showed to be ineffective and Alvarez has run away with the starting C job in Queens.  The questions, though, remain as to what Alvarez needed to prove to not allow him on the opening day roster?  1B/OF Mark Vientos has now gotten a taste of the majors and been sent back to Syracuse recently with the return of Pete Alonso from the IL.  Vientos and SS Ronny Mauricio appear to be the furthest away from playing time at time of writing and could very well be part of a blockbuster trade at the deadline to try and get the skidding Mets turned around.  The first three (Baty, Alvarez and Vientos) have at least gotten playing time.   If the Mets want to hold Mauricio until next season to try and run it again with the ROY caveat, they're going to have to turn this team around and play better or lest have the fanbase clamoring for Mauricio's bat in the lineup.

Vaughn Grissom, SS Atlanta Braves - It was a 150 AB sample size in 2022 that got Grissom on the radar for many MLB fans and specifically Atlanta Braves fans.  He nearly hit 300 and showed flashes of pop and defensive wizardry before the season ended for the Braves.  With the departure of Dansby Swanson and the return of Ozzie Albies from injury, Grissom was all but a shoe-in for the starting SS job.  The team wanted to be sure he could be defensive-minded enough to handle the difficulty of playing SS everyday where he had been covering 2B in lieu of Albies in 22.  The bat has certainly played for the young Brave at AAA Gwinnett this season as he's gone to the tune of a .312/.376/.462 triple slash over 200 AB's.  He's also shown some pop in the short time he covered for Orlando Arcia at SS for 19 games.  With Arcia holding his own at the majors (nearly 400 OBP through similar AB totals as Grissom at AAA) the future seems rather cloudy for Grissom.  That isn't even to take into account Braden Shewmake who could be pushing him off of the SS position entirely within the organization.

Christopher Morel - Utility Man, Chicago Cubs.  16 homers and 10 steals in 2022 over 379 at bats was not enough to secure this guy a job on the opening day roster for the Cubbies in 2023.  Instead, he spent time in Iowa before getting the call just after the first of May.  If you're a baseball fan, you know that this kid went absolutely nuts when he got the call, hitting 9 home runs in the first 12 games after his recall.  He hasn't looked back since, but why did he even have to?  Was playing Patrick Wisdom, Nick Madrigal, Mike Tauchman and Miles Mastrobuoni that important that we didn't get to see a dynamic piece of the Cubs future?

Literally any healthy arm on Tampa Bay - Shane Baz, Josh Fleming, Drew Rasmussen, Jeffery Springs, Andrew Kittredge, Garrett Cleavinger, Calvin Faucher.... all down with injury.  The rest?  Luis Patino, Cooper Criswell, Ryan Thompson, Jalen Beeks, Trevor Kelley,  Taj Bradley, Yonny Chirinos, and all their bullpen are just a disgusting rolling rotation of options and recalls.  But what do I know?  They're the best team in baseball right now and they can manipulate service with the best of them.  They've still got guys like Curtis Mead, Kyle Manzardo and Junior Caminero all coming soon to be tossed around like Taylor Walls, Joey Wendle before him and Ben Zobrist before him.  The joys and curses of being a Ray...

The Reds dudes.  I'm going to finish on the hottest team in baseball right now, the Cincinnati Reds who have themselves an entire team of young, bright futures.  Led by all-world Elly De La Cruz (who himself was held down for a while to gain "seasoning" while the team played such great SS options like Kevin Newman), this Cincinnati Reds team could be seeing some bright lights as soon as this year should these kids keep it up.  Along with De La Cruz is the 2020 Rookie of the Year, Jonathan India, new SS Matt McLain (who personally pushed Newman to the bench before De La Cruz even pushed the doors open) and they're not done yet.  Alongside EDLC, McLain and India are yet-to-debut Christian Encarnacion-Strand who is only destroying AAA pitching to the tune of a .338/.409/.662 triple slash as of writing.  He's hit 17 bombs, driven in 47 and has an OPS north of 1.000.  WHAT ELSE does that kid have to do to become the DH aside from be Joey Votto?  Is Spencer Steer seriously that special he is blocking this talented kid?  Add in Noelvi Marte, Cam Collier and Chase Petty and this Reds team is going to be really really good really soon.

I initially wrote this with intention of finding guys who had had their service time manipulated and it turned into naming off the next big stars... but the argument remains the same.  Each of these players have been toiling in the minors for long enough that they have earned a spot on their parent teams' roster.  The recent CBA between the MLBPA and MLB has done some of the heavy lifting of removing the service time manipulation, but there's still a long way to go when you're on the cusp of your MLB career and are blocked by a tenured and expensive veteran.  Something's got to give.