A Top 100 prospect, you need to know what you are getting with Nick Madrigal, but boy, do you get plenty of it!
- Born: March 6, 1997
- B/T: Right/Right
- 5’7″, 165-lbs
- Drafted by the Chicago White Sox in the 2018 MLB June Amateur Draft from 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:
I don’t know if you realize the enormity of what you are looking at above, but concentrate on that K% column and realize nobody in the minors struck out less than Nick Madrigal.
This is a guy who played three years at Oregon State where he had 707 plate appearances, and he struck out only 37 times. He then said, “Hold my beer,” turned pro, and in almost exactly the same number of professional plate appearances (705) only struck out 21 times!
Is it because he walks a lot? Nope, he doesn’t draw many walks. Why, that must mean he hits everything in sight! Yup, see those OBP marks? He gets on base. A lot. And he steals some bases.
Now the bad news: That ISO is beyond ugly, and the Hard% slaps you in the face in case you get cocky and think maybe the lack of power isn’t real.
In fact, he’s a ground baller. He hits it everywhere line drive style, but not in the air.
Oh, he hits everyone, but perhaps a bit more against righties.
See, only a tiny bit of pull power, and absolutely no opposite field power. But within the park he’s peppering it all over the place.
It’s not easy to get an OPS over .800 with no SLG to go with the OBP, but if your OBP is high enough…
The Scouts
- Rotowire: #84 on their Top 400.
- BaseballHQ: #51 on their Top 100.
- Fangraphs: #41 on their Top 120.
- Fantasy Six Pack: #163 on their dynasty list.
- Prospects365: #85 on Ray Butler’s Top 200.
- Imaginary Brick Wall: #46 on the Top 487.
- Fantrax: #84 on the Top 250.
Warnings
He is who he is, so do not go after him for power that might someday develop on his 5’7″ frame.
Some of those ground balls will be gobbled up by major league defenses.
Conclusion
Otherwise he’s great. He plays world class 2B defense, and he gets on base, and he steals bases. He’s one of those batters who will give you a high BA and some SBs and Runs, and nothing else, but what he does give you, he will give you over and over again.