2 The Bigs

By Sal Corso: Feb 15, 2024

As baseball fans, you always hear about them. Sort of like what the 6-foot-8, 14-year-old kid dunking the ball in AAU games on social media is to basketball fans. International teens from the likes of the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Cuba and more, are on every major league teams’ scouting radar. The MLB granted a total of $176,337,600 to be used by teams in the international market. That’s a lot of money given to kids ranging from 13-19 years old. With this money and social media buzz, come lofty expectations. Many never reach those heights, let alone even see a major league field. But here are two with major upside that you should keep an eye on in 2024.

Rayner Arias, San Francisco Giants (Age: 17, Signed: 2023)

Rayner is one of the youngest prospects out there. He also made the loudest first impression. With only 16-games at the Rookie-Ball level under his belt, there’s a very small sample size of metrics and video to grade him off of. However, he made sure to make the most of what he was given. Here are some points:

• Slashed .414 / .539 / .793
• 24 hits in 16 games
• 12 of them XBH (4 HR)
• 1.332 OPS and 21 RBI
• 17% of his fly balls were HR (Acuna’s was 24% in his MVP season last year)

He’s got a home run swing, but he’s controlled at the plate. He only struck out 11 times in 76 PA (14.5%). We don’t want to jump the gun; we need to see him up against A/AA pitching. We’ll see that right when the 2024 season is underway. I LOVE his upside, one that screams 40/100. But 2024 will be a huge deciding factor to see if he is going to take the Ronald Acuna route, or the Jurickson Profar one (no disrespect to Profar, who has built a solid career). His 1^st Bowman prices are not too bad ($50), I would jump on at that price. If he does anything similar in A-ball this season, he’ll shoot up every prospect ranking sheet. Arias looks like a star, and the Giants bet big on him being one ($2.67M bonus, second highest given in Giants franchise history).

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Miguel Bleis, Boston Red Sox (Age: 19, Signed: 2021)

Bleis has been around the prospecting market for some time, given he was signed three years ago. He has an extremely high ceiling, which is why he’s already on the Red Sox MLB coaches’ radar. But an even lower floor, which is why Alex Cora has told reporters that fans need to “Be Patient” with the young prospect.”

Bleis looks the part. A pitcher sees a tall, strong and athletic body walking up to the plate. Soxprospects.com describes his approach as:

“Quick hands, plus bat speed…aggressive when ahead…ball makes a different sound when he squares it up”.

The raw tools are there. But the plate approach needs a ton of development. He’s had a 26% K-rate in each of the last two years. What’s scarier is that one of those was in Rookie-Ball. Overall, he struggled in 2023 at A-ball as well (.239/.282/.325 in 31 games). Only 3% of his fly balls left the park last year, and he pulls the ball nearly 50% of the time. Us nor the Red Sox are on high-alert yet, but he’s in a slightly different position than Arias.  Bleis doesn’t need to have a “great” year, but that plate approach needs to drastically improve in 2024. I’m not a SELL on Bleis yet because of that tremendous upside, but I’m not ready to BUY at the $100 price tag for a Refractor Autograph (/499). Let’s HOLD him for now. If that K-rate drops and OBP improves, I’ll be ready to jump on the bandwagon.

Unrelated but similar, I love when Bowman uses the pose for international prospect pictures. I would grab both of these cards for the look alone.