The Week Two standouts in the Arizona Fall League

It’s been two weeks since the Arizona Fall League started on October 6th and already a ton of prospects have been turning heads. By the end of the season I’ll have a breakdown on how every prospect looked but for now here’s a list of seven players who have been standouts to be so far.

Esmerlyn Valdez OF (PIT): In this list of players I was planning on avoiding any players I’ve already talked about but Valdez has been the hottest hitter in all of baseball over his first eight AFL games. In 20 at bats Valdez is slashing .500/.686/1.600. He’s hit 7 home runs to go along with a 13/3 walk/strikeout ratio. Valdez has some of the highest average exit velocity, max exit velocity, hard hit rate, and barrel rate in the AFL this season. He’s already tied for 14th in the AFL’s single season home run lists. He’s killing every pitcher he faces and should be looked at as a top hitting prospect at this point for the Pirates going forward. As I talked about in my Salt River Rafters roster preview and last week Valdez has been hitting the cover off the ball for a few years now. He broke onto the scene in Low-A during the 2024 season where he hit .226/.352/.464 for a 130 wRC+ with 22 home runs. His problem was a high strikeout rate and in zone whiff percentage. This year he made big strides this year starting in High-A where he hit .303/.385/.592 for a 176 wRC+ and continued to hit in AA where he slashed .260/.363/.409. He was focused on making in zone contact and cutting down on that strikeout rate dropping from 33.6% in 2024 to 24.6% in 2025. His walk rate did drop by 3% it still was a respectable 10.6% this year. Obviously in the AFL this trend has continued as his walk rate has jumped back up and his strikeout rate has dropped significantly. If Valdez can keep this up he can reach the Pirates by next season easily. Even though he’s not the best defender in right he has some time played at first where he might settle in just to get his electric bat in the lineup. Keep watching him this Fall. He's been incredible especially for a prospect who wasn’t ranked by Fangraphs and was #15 in MLB Pipelines ranking. 

Walker Janek C (HOU): After a successful first full season in High-A for the Astros the former 28th overall pick has been hot in the AFL slashing .333/.375/.733 with 3 homer runs and already 18 RBIs in his first 7 games. In last Friday's game Janek went 2/5 with 7 RBIs, most coming off a grand slam. That game was a microcosm of his entire season with all five at bats resulting in hard hit balls. This AFL season Janek has a 60% hard hit rate and an average exit velocity of 94.6 mph. One thing that’s carried over from his minor league season has been his high swing tendency as Janek has a 2/10 walk to strikeout ratio. His also whiffing more than in Low-A to a 35.8% rate. This could be just Janek dealing with the higher talent that comes from the AFL. He’s also shown off his wheels stealing 3 bases so far and yet to be caught. During the High-A season he stole 30 bases while only being caught twice, something you rarely see from a catcher. One thing that’s been a knock on Janek defensively has been his ability to block and frame but so far behind the plate he seems great especially with his elite arm and pop time. If Janek can keep this power going against older pitchers in higher leagues next season then he’s one of the top catching prospects in baseball easily especially if he can fix some of his swing decisions and walk more. 

Max Anderson 3B (DET): An impressive season throughout AA and AAA led Anderson to the AFL where he has lit the league up in his first 16 at bats hitting .563/.696/1.600. He’s hit 3 homers and 3 doubles with a 8/4 walk to strikeout ratio. Anderson doesn’t have the highest exit velocities but he is consistently making hard contact. During his 32 games in AAA he had a hard hit rate of 48.6% and that’s carried over to the fall with a 83.3% rate. He swings a ton at pitches both in the zone and out of the zone but makes contact at a 78.2% rate. This has led to low strikeout numbers but also low walk rates. So far in the AFL though he’s walking at a 32% rate albeit in a low sample size. Anderson can go to any part of the field and has been working on pulling flyballs in the last year as he really struggled with that in his first minor league season which he has been doing this AFL. Anderson has spent the past two seasons playing mostly second base but is transitioning over to third this fall as he gets ready to compete for a roster spot in the Spring. 

Jake Bennett LHP (WSH): The Opening Day started in the first AFL game this year Bennett has shown some great strikeout stuff this Fall. Even though he’s been hit around a bit giving up 8 earned runs in 11 innings so far to a 6.55 ERA he’s struck out 17 while only walking 2. He keeps hitters on their toes especially left handed hitters mainly from his changeup working off two fastballs. He mainly throws a sinker that sits in the low 90s with 16.5” of horizontal movement and a four seam fastball also in the low 90s with not great movement but he’s able to throw both for a strike consistently. Off of those he has a mid 80s changeup that is easily his best pitch with a 52.2% whiff rate so far this Fall. He also throws two sliders, a low 80s more gyro slider and a harder upper 80s cutter that have gotten good whiff rates when thrown in the zone. His last pitch is an upper 70s curveball that he’ll throw from time to time against righties. Bennett missed all of the 2024 season due to Tommy John Surgery and looked amazing since coming back in early May. Through 75.1 total innings between Low-A, High-A, AA he had a 2.27 ERA and 2.96 FIP. His strikeout numbers this minor league season weren’t as impressive as he’s been showing in the fall with only a 21.5% rate this season and a 17.9% during his time in AA. He had big strikeout numbers in his first season in 2023 with a 28.3% rate but has mostly been a low walk pitcher with a ton of ground balls this season. If he can continue with this high whiff rate the sky's the limit for Bennett. 

Tyler Davis RHP (CWS): A former Independent League reliever Davis has made big strides so far in the White Sox system. So far this AFL season he’s only thrown 4 innings and has given up 7 hits and 3 runs in those innings but  he has 9 strikeouts already. Davis’ biggest game came on the 15th where he went the last 2 innings for the Desert Dogs and struck out five consecutive batters only giving up one hit. Davis has some great stuff that could potentially play in the White Sox bullpen soon. Starting with a sinker sitting around 96 mph with some great induced vertical break. When he’s able to throw it for a strike in the top of the zone it’s almost unhittable but his problem has been leaving in the middle of the zone too much where it gets hammered. He throws a mid 80s slider with 7.2” of horizontal break that has good chase and whiff numbers. He’s also surprisingly been able to throw it in the zone a decent amount of time but leaves it hanging sometimes. Lastly his change also in the mid 80s has some good late fade and a 50% whiff rate in the AFL. All three of his pitches could play in the Majors right now but he’s shown this Fall and in the minors that he’s still working on command. Even though Davis is yet to walk someone this Fall he has some bad outings due to leaving his pitches too much in the zone. This season in 54 AA innings Davis threw to a 3.17 ERA and 2.61 FIP while walking 11.9% of batters. He has been able to limit homers and with a 28.2% strikeout rate he can get out of any jam quickly. Even though he’s already 27 Davis is not Rule 5 eligible until the end of the 2027 and is a super intriguing arm for the future that I haven’t seen many people on yet. 

James Hicks RHP (HOU): Another Astros’ prospect who has been super impressive, Hicks has thrown 7 innings without giving up a run so far. He’s struck out 8 while only walking a batter so far. Hicks doesn’t have overpowering stuff at all but a five pitch mix from a basically side arm slot has been really hard for pitchers to pick up on at times. Like a lot of side arm pitchers he has relied mostly on his offspeed throwing his curveball 33% of the time. It sits in the low 80s with a steep drop off at 18” of horizontal break and 2.6” of induced vertical break along with great spin. He’s able to throw it for a strike a lot and has gotten a 47% chase rate when it’s not. His fastballs, a four seam and sinker, sit in the low 90s with below average movement but his ability to throw them for strikes makes them play up off his curveball. He also throws a solid changeup and slider in the mid 80s that both have some late break. It seems Hicks has struggled to throw the changeup for a strike in his two outings but has gotten some solid whiff numbers off of it. This season he got off to a bad start in his first 17 innings at AA before an undisclosed injury kept him out for months returning in August and throwing 29.2 innings to a 4.55 ERA and striking out a batter an inning before the season ended. With such a weird arm slot and a very quick delivery Hicks can make hitters get really off balance and can really mess with their timing. He’s never going to have the highest upside but gets a ton of ground balls and can get enough strikeouts to get by as a starter. 

Chen-Wei Lin RHP (STL): The former top international signing out of Taiwan Lin has seriously struggled this season dealing with multiple injuries and only throwing 50.1 innings to a 5.54 ERA and 3.80 FIP. He spent most of the season in High-A but struggled in 9.2 innings in AA pitching to a 9.31 ERA there. So far this Fall he’s pitched 5.2 innings in two starts and hasn’t given up a run. He’s only given up two hits and kept his walks down to 3 total which was his biggest problem this season. He also has 9 strikeouts. This year Lin walked 17.5% of batters but was able to strike out 31.4% due to his massive stuff on all five of his pitches. His four seam and sinker sit in the mid 90s but have touched 100 mph before. They both have really great movement and tend to get a lot of swing and misses up in the zone. Lin has a pitch that’s characterized as a slider but moves like a cutter with low 80s slider velocity. He has two different offspeed pitches as well with a mid 80s changeup and a high 80s splitter with unique movement. As I said in my roster breakdown the stuff is there for Lin to have a breakout season when he’s back healthy next season and could quickly rise past AA.