He keeps getting traded in big deals, but Boston will be glad they wound up with this Jeter.
- Born: July 27, 1998
- B/T: R/R
- 5’11”, 180-lbs
- Drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in the 1st round of the 2017 MLB June Amateur draft from Monsignor Edward Pace HS (Miami Gardens, FL)
The Numbers
His raw numbers are listed above courtesy of baseball-reference.com. Let’s aggregate by year then focus on the important numbers for minor leaguers:
Lots of blues and greens, and the only yellow has turned green last year.
Scouts think his speed won’t be that solid in the majors, that he is a below average runner. So think of him as more of a power hitter who has good bat control. That strikeout rate is solid, the walk rate is great, and the Hard% shows the power is real. In fact, 2019 was better than it looks above. Let’s break it out further:
That strikeout rate remained in place, but the walk rate, OBP and ISO all leaped forward in the second half. It was a great season for Jeter Downs.
He really destroyed lefties in Class A Advanced. Still, his OBP against righties of .335 was serviceable.
In this career spray chart, we see the pull power, with a little opposite field power. But what if we ignore his teenage years, and just show his age 20 season in 2019:
Now it looks more balanced. See those home runs the opposite way to right field? It’s pretty much the same home runs shown on the career chart, showing that the opposite field power is a recent development. He’s growing into his power.
And there it is visually. He has a career OPS just over .800, and there he hovered for approximately two seasons. Then in mid-May 2019, he took off, started climbing and never stopped. That’s a chart of a prospect blowing up.
The Scouts
- Rotowire: #25 on their Top 400.
- BaseballHQ: #84 on their Top 100.
- Fangraphs: #286 on their Top 120.
- Fantasy Six Pack: #23 on their dynasty list.
- Prospects365: #64 on Ray Butler’s Top 200.
- Imaginary Brick Wall: #23 on the Top 487.
- Fantrax: #47 on the Top 250.
Warnings
His speed dropped in the second half. Will that reduce his value in the majors?
Conclusion
He’s a top prospect for a reason. Power combined with bat control will lead to good on-base skills with power enough to hit 25-to-30 home runs. That will play in the infield.
Speaking of infield, though he’s played more SS than 2B, scouts think his range means 2B will be his eventual home. He’ll be a good one.
EDIT: Dec. 16, 2022: With the news that the Red Sox have released Downs, what went wrong?
Became apparent in the upper levels that he [Downs]could not get on top of high fastballs and he couldn’t adjust once the book was out
Eric Longenhagen chat
Yeah, that’ll do it, and it’s a reminder why I often say to wait until a prospect reaches Double-A before drawing any firm conclusions.