A Top 50 prospect, the former 1st-rounder had his first full season and made it all the way to Double-A. How did he do? Spoiler: He made it all the way to Double-A, duh.
- Born: February 26, 1997
- B/T: Left/Right
- 6’4″, 223lb
- Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 1st round of the 2018 MLB June Amateur Player Draft out of Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR)
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:
Nice guy to own in an OBP league, huh? He draws his walks, that’s for sure, and he did it from day one. He doesn’t strike out too much, he doesn’t have much speed, and he hits the ball fairly hard. But what about that ISO drop?
The first part of his year, about 2/3 of the season, was spent in the Florida State League, and power is hard to come by. Then he got the promotion to the Southern League and the power starts to return:
He has power; he showed it in 2018. He started to get it back in 2019 late in the season. The Twins will probably coach him to lift the ball more to tap into his power, and this will probably cost him some OBP points, but he has that to spare.
He hit all pitching well. In Fort Meyers he feasted on righties, but he hit lefties just fine. In Pensacola he improved against lefties, but again hit righties better.
He pulls his home runs, though he has opposite field power too. But you can see the bunching going on toward right field.
Started to figure out High-A before hitting the summer doldrums. Then in Double-A he had a bit of adjustment, then got the hang of things again.
The Scouts
- Rotowire: #85 on their Top 400.
- BaseballHQ: #50 on their Top 100.
- Fangraphs: #55 on their Top 120.
- Fantasy Six Pack: #167 on their dynasty list.
- Prospects365: #34 on Ray Butler’s Top 200.
- Imaginary Brick Wall: #60 on the Top 487.
- Fantrax: #27 on the Top 250.
Warnings
Let’s see his power develop more in Double-A and Triple-A.
Does that tapped power mean too many strikeouts, or will his OBP handle the load?
Conclusion
Not much speed, but there should be enough power to hit 25 home runs at maturity. A good hit tool, his BAVG and OBP should be decent too. He’s not far off now, and he’s got a starter’s profile. A good athlete who had a good first full season. Larnach is a keeper.