Scouting report: Eloy Jiménez
By Tyler Maun / MiLB.com
This is the second in a series where MiLB.com will look at some of the game’s most elite prospects from the points of view of opposing coaches, scouts and players. Interviewees have been kept anonymous for their objective evaluations. Check out our May edition featuring Vladimir Guerrero Jr. here.
Outside of baseball’s top prospect, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., perhaps no Minor Leaguer this year has been discussed as much as Eloy Jiménez, who is on the verge of reaching the Major Leagues one year after he was traded from the Cubs to the White Sox. The 21-year-old outfielder earned a mid-June promotion to Triple-A Charlotte after batting .317/.368/.556 through 53 games with Double-A Birmingham. In the International League, the top White Sox prospect has been a force, raking at a .376/.423/.693 rate with eight homers — he hit 10 in nearly double the time at Double-A — and 17 RBIs through 27 games.
Baseball’s №. 3 overall prospect will be a focal point of the rebuilt South Siders whenever he reaches the Majors, and his time left in the Minors is limited. Jiménez’s offensive tools are formidable, and while his defense is still developing, he’s already an adequate performer manning the outfield. I asked a group of Southern League and International League observers to give their perspective on what makes Jiménez such a special hitter and what he needs to do to reach the Majors.
Southern League manager
On seeing Jiménez earlier this season
“He was extremely impressive. I think he missed about a week to start the year. He comes in, plays us against us, and he looked a little bit rusty. Then we see him the second time when he’s locked in, and I saw one of those swings that’s almost Miguel Cabrera-esque, one of those uncoiling swings that has the ability to let a fastball get deep in the zone and hit it hard to all parts of the field and then stay through the off-speed stuff. He’s almost unpitchable. If you watch what he does, he’s got that really, really relaxed front side. The way he positions his body, his hips are just coiled, and they just stay there. When the ball gets to the hitting zone, he just unloads on it and hits anything hard. It’s one of those guys that’s really fun to watch.”
On his ability to adapt to pitching
“He makes adjustments at-bat to at-bat, so you can’t just attack him the same way every time. That’s something right now that I’m trying to pay attention to in hitters. If a hitter shows that he can do that, he’s telling me that he’s ready for the next level. There’s few of them down here in Double-A. That’s why he’s up in Triple-A right now, and that’s why I see he’s going to be a big league hitter. You cannot be a consistent big league hitter unless you’ve got the ability to make adjustments on the fly like that. He does it, and to do it at his age shows me that he’s going to have a long, good career.”
On utilizing similar approaches
“We couldn’t do it in the zone. We couldn’t attack him in the zone in the same spot over and over. We had to attack him hard in one spot and then make our pitches out of the zone and hope he’s chasing. If he chased [in] one or two at-bats or one game, he wasn’t going to chase those same pitches the next day, so we had to adjust the game plan. It was a typical big-guy approach, hard in, soft away, breaking balls away. That’s what we got him with early on, threw him a lot of slop away. Sure enough, he wasn’t chasing it. So he’d hit the hangers. You had to be real careful with what you did. If we tried to go in on him, he’d notice that really quick, and he’d get the [bat] head out there. He’s also a guy [who] if you go in on, you better miss off the plate. You can’t miss on the plate at all. He’s got that swing that won’t just pull it. He’s not one of those cheat guys. If you miss middle-in, he’ll hit it out to center. That’s why I compare him to Miguel Cabrera. I watched Miguel Cabrera a lot of times hit some real nasty sinkers in off the plate and hit them out to right-center. You’ve got to be a big, strong guy with a really good swing to do that. Eloy can do that.”
On the evolution of Jiménez’s plate discipline
“It was night and day from the first series we faced against him to the next. We gave him a hard time that first series. We’ve got a really good pitching staff, and they have some good breaking balls. We have a couple of good fastball guys, but the majority of the staff’s got pretty good sliders. That matched up with him pretty well that first series. The second time around, he just wasn’t chasing the same pitches and was making it a lot harder on these guys. We had to be real careful with what we gave him in the zone, and he’s one of those guys where you’ve got to miss. If you’re going to throw in, you miss off the plate. If you’re going to throw him breaking balls, you miss those off the plate, as well. I’m sure that a lot of people are finding that that’s the game plan you have to have against him, and he’s making those adjustments and taking his walks. He’s only going to get better once he understands that and he grows as a hitter. Once he gets to the big leagues, he’ll find more pitchers willing to challenge him. The stuff is better up there. There will be more four-seam guys that try to attack him up in the zone. He’s got that swing with the little bit steeper angle in his setup which allows him to hit off-speed stuff, stay in the zone real lateral. He doesn’t really work horizontal. He’ll make an adjustment. Seeing him make adjustments down here, he’ll make adjustments to the four-seam guys, as well. He’s going to be a fun guy to follow.”
On his defense
“Position-wise, he’s not a fleet-footed outfielder, so he’s not going to give you a bunch of range. His arm isn’t a cannon, but it’s good enough to play left field and right field. He’s going to drive in more runs than he lets in, that’s for sure.”
On his work in the outfield
“That was the side that showed he’s young. His jumps on balls weren’t real good, so there’s a lot of little singles that fell in that might be caught by a good outfielder. He tended to take a little bit of banana routes on those balls deep in the gap. That happens with young guys. He uses his length as an outfielder really well. His strides are long, so when he gets going, he takes good, long strides, and his long arms allow him to catch things easy. He’s got that long arm action where when he gets extension, he gets some carry to the ball. It’s real easy. When he catches the ball, he’s not real quick with his release, but when he lets go of it, it has some good life on it where he can throw the ball from pretty far away and still be accurate with it. But that’s not what he’s going to be real needed for. He’s not going to be a liability out there, that’s for sure.”
On his size
“A lot of times these guys, they get their weight listed when they sign. Guys like him that get signed when they’re 16, 17 years old, they were a lot skinnier. He’s a presence. Just his setup in the box, a lot of times, the way guys stand on the plate, how far they are from the dish, their body language, it can do something to the pitcher. He’s got one of those really comfortable stances that doesn’t look like there’s many places to throw the ball and be safe. Because of that, pitchers are going to be really careful earlier in the count. One side effect of that is, there’s going to be a tendency for pitchers to fall behind real early. Eloy’s going to get a lot of 1–0, 2–0, 2–1 counts, and because of that, he’s going to get a lot of pitches to hit that he can drive or he’s going to have the opportunity to push his contact zone out in front a little more and his numbers will only get better. You see that in a lot of good hitters. I remember back in the day, Albert Pujols was a guy that you’d always wonder how he got into so many hitter’s counts. Pitchers were scared to throw strikes early. It’s tough on hitters down in the bottom of the lineup, because they’re always behind early in counts because they just don’t have that presence at the plate that these big hitters do. When you have the patience and the selectiveness to wait for that pitch that you can drive and you’re big and strong and have that look at the plate, you can get to those advantageous counts early on. He’ll do that.”
Southern League pitcher
On his game plan against Jiménez
“Our scouting report said fastballs up, soft away, so that’s what I basically did. I had to respect that, and I didn’t really give him much to hit. The hit he got was a changeup out of the zone. He stuck his bat out there and hit it to right field. I just went fastballs up and soft away. The main thing was I got ahead on him and didn’t fall behind, so I didn’t have to throw him a cookie fastball.”
On the development of Jiménez’s discipline
“The last time I saw him, there was a big difference that he knew what he wanted to look for and he was disciplined a little bit better. He still swung at the odd fastball at the chest that he was trying to drive the other way. I would say he got better. He’s just a good hitter in general, and you have to respect those types of guys.”
On Jiménez’s imposing size
“I really never get scared. You just throw it, and if they hit it, they hit it. The worst thing that can happen is they hit a line drive right back at you, but that’s pitching. You’ve got to have confidence to throw to those guys or you’re just not going to make it. Once you’re in the big leagues, you’re going to be facing guys 1–9 that are that big. I really just went at it, threw my pitches, did what I needed to do to get him out, and that’s it.”
On taking account of a top-ranked prospect in a lineup
“You know the guys that are better than other people, but with pitching, you just have to treat everyone the same. You can’t really let your guard down against the little guys or the 6–7–8 guys, because that’s when they’ll hurt you the most — when you let your guard down — so you just go at every hitter the same and approach them the same. That’s what makes you a successful pitcher, I think.”
On seeing Jiménez’s success at 21 years old
“It’s awesome. It’s so good when you get to see talent like that in the game of baseball. It just puts a smile on your face that you can be 21 in Triple-A or be 19 and be in the big leagues like [Juan Soto]. You just love to see guys succeed in this game. It’s always awesome.”
American League scout
On initial impressions of Jiménez
“Best hitter I have seen all year, easily: strength, bat speed, and barrel awareness. He is a natural-born hitter who has really grown into his frame the last two years. The ball just explodes off his bat.”
On Jiménez as a defender
“He is a below-average defender. He was just the DH when I saw him [this year], but he shags fine. But all my reporting on him in the past leads me to believe he will be below-average out there.”
On Jiménez’s plate discipline
“He was aggressive and crushed everything in the K zone back when I saw but did not chase.”
International League manager
On first looks at Jiménez
“What a physical specimen he is. He’s got tremendous strength. Probably an average outfielder, but it’s the power that’s really, really exciting. He’s not afraid to swing the bat. I think the strike zone adjustment is going to get better the more he plays and the more he learns the different pitchers and stuff, but what an exciting player.”
On how to attack Jiménez at the plate
“We tried a lot of different things. We tried crowding him a little bit early on with some fastballs, and he was pretty patient. We also tried some first-pitch breaking balls, and he actually hammered one of those off the [outfield wall] first pitch. The more he gets to understanding who the pitchers are and what and who he is, he’s going to be just fine. I think it can be intimidating when you step on the mound, you look in the box, and his broad shoulders and wide stance and humongous quads take up the entire batter’s box. It can definitely be intimidating. It can actually probably scare the pitcher out of the zone.”
On what makes Jiménez such a strong hitter mechanically
“It’s the wide stance, I think. The legs are in a good spot where he’s in pretty good balance, but also uses them. There’s not a lot going on there. The upper half, he’s got some long limbs. He probably tends to overuse the arms to swing a little too much instead of just letting it happen and letting the hands flow, but from a route standpoint, he’s pretty clean to the ball, pretty direct. I’m not sure what comp is good for him, but somebody that’s got those long arms, you think about kind of crowding him. But he’s not on the plate, so that’s not much of an issue for me going forward. He’ll be able to have power to all fields.”
On what is left for Jiménez to refine at Triple-A
“We’ve seen some players on our roster that were young as well at this level. It seems like Triple-A is getting younger and younger, and I think for him, a top prospect getting to Triple-A at his young age, knocking on the door to the big leagues, I think he just needs to continue to play. Something I tell my players all the time is, ‘Just go out and play.’ Don’t worry about when you’re going to get to the big leagues, because you will at some point as long as you stay healthy and keep producing. When you get to the big leagues, they’re going to have to make an adjustment to you first. Then the counter-adjustment is going to be on the player. If the player can make that a lot sooner, then they tend to have a lot more success and end up staying in the big leagues a lot longer. Then the league’s going to adjust again, and it’s how you adjust back. At Triple-A, that may not necessarily be the case. Advance reports, depending on different organizations, are different. I think if he keeps playing, the more he plays, the better he’s going to get. His tools are off the charts, and it’s going to allow him to play at a high level going forward.”
On how Jiménez adjusts in-game
“Especially for his age and me thinking that he’s kind of a free swinger, he definitely made some good in-game adjustments. One game in particular, we tried not to let him beat us, and he was able to take his walks. He definitely has shown some maturity as far as in-game adjustments.”
On his overall defensive profile
“I think he played left field in all the games we’ve seen, but he was fine out there. Roamed around just fine, and he actually threw somebody out at the plate as well, so he showed a good arm with decent accuracy. He’s going to be fine defensively.”
On where Jiménez ranks among top prospects to recently go through the IL
“I could go really, really high on this and put a lot of pressure on him, but I just think you look at his tools, he has the ability to impact the baseball in a really, really good way. Easy to say at the big league level a 30-homer guy, but I think you can dream a little bit higher, too.”
