Ronny Mauricio, SS, NYM

One of the top international prospects signed in 2017, how has Ronny Mauricio done since then? Hint, we won’t be looking at the numbers too hard…

Video courtesy of FanGraphs
  • Born: February 4, 2001
  • B/T: Both/Right
  • 6’3″, 166lb
  • Drafted by the New York Mets in 2017 out of the Dominican Republic

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:

The guy is 6’3″ and only weighs 166 pounds. When you are that tall, and that skinny, it’s not surprising the power isn’t present, nor is the Hard%. At this point, while waiting for this teen’s body to catch up to his growth spurt, we can just look for bat control. And a 17-year-old who only strikes out 16% of the time is pretty impressive.

Side note: Wouldn’t it be cool to have a player who had a strikeout rate equal to their age throughout their career? All through their 20s, it would be in the 20%-29% range, and he wouldn’t wash out until his mid-30s, as he would anyway. At age 17, Mauricio had a 16% K% rate. Soooo close.

Would be nice to see more walks than 5%, but that kind of respect will follow when the power shows up.

Mauricio is a switch hitter, so he should be able to defeat most of the platoon splits that other batters faced. So far he needs to work on hitting lefties better.

As befitting a switch hitter, the balls are fairly evenly spread out, with a few extra hit to right field.

Welcome to pro ball, 17-year-old Ronny. It’s hard isn’t it?

Welcome to A-ball, 18-year-old Ronny, nice to see you getting the hang of things.

The Scouts

Warnings

Well, the power, for one thing. That will depend on his body growing to maturity, and until it does, we only take it on faith.

I presume the walks will follow the power, but we need to see that.

He’s only 18, so there’s risk.

Conclusion

He’s a scout darling, so we can’t look too much into the numbers. The scouts swear the power is coming, at at 6’3″, the frame is ready for it. This is a dynasty play: you might not benefit until four years go by, but by that time you’ll look like a genius.

Unless you don’t. Hey, there’s risk, but it’s a risk I would take. Think of Mauricio as a blue-chip stock during a market rout. Don’t look at your 401K in the short term. Peek at it four years from now and watch your smile grow wide.