Scouting Jesús Made, Luis Peña, and more Brewers and Orioles prospects; plus Trey Yesavage notes

New York Times

27-06-2025

Jesús Made just turned 18 in early May, but he's off to an outstanding start as one of the youngest players anywhere in full-season ball, particularly in making contact despite facing pitchers who are often several years his senior. The whole Carolina Mudcats (Milwaukee's Low-A affiliate) lineup had a huge April thanks to some weak competition, yet since that month ended, he's still hitting .260/.373/.379 with just a 20.4 percent strikeout rate.
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I caught Carolina at Delmarva (Baltimore's Low-A affiliate) on Tuesday night, and saw some of Made's defensive prowess along with his incredible bat speed. Made made three plays at shortstop that the average shortstop doesn't make, including two plays that involved him ranging to his right and grabbing a ball that was headed for left field, then making an accurate throw to first. (He got the first runner, but the second was too fast.)
He was 1 for 5 at the plate with two strikeouts, but both were caught looking, and he showed elite bat speed and great hand-eye even though his only hit was a hard groundball single to center. I still haven't seen a great game from Made across four looks — although I assume I'll see him again in the Futures Game All-Star weekend — but I can at least see the superstar upside on both sides of the ball.
Second baseman Luis Peña is also 18, just six months older than Made. The Orioles prospect is hitting .316/.374/.500 with 32 stolen bases in 39 attempts for Carolina, and while he doesn't have Made's upside on either side of the ball, he's got the better present hit tool.
Mudcats on the board off the bat of Luis Pena‼️ pic.twitter.com/sEiftYHtFA
— Carolina Mudcats (@CarolinaMudcats) June 26, 2025
Peña hit the ball hard five times, just missing a homer as he got out in front of a breaking ball in his first time up and still drove it to the left field warning track, smoking a single to center by keeping his hands inside the ball on a 94-mph pitch middle-in, and doubling off the left field wall in Carolina's rally in the ninth by staying on a slider away. Even his two groundballs were well hit, including a high chop that I thought he beat out but the umpire apparently had plans to go get some crab cakes. (To be fair, it was already a blowout at that point. I wasn't mad. Please don't put in The Daily Times that I got mad.)
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He has a see-ball, hit-ball approach; he's only seen about ∏ pitches per plate appearance (3.139, but humor me), so he may never be much of an on-base guy. Or he may just hit .320 and it won't matter. I'm not saying this is who he'll be, but if you wanted to build another Luis Arráez at the plate, you'd probably want to start with something like Peña.
The Brewers took shortstop/right-handed pitcher Eric Bitonti in the third round in 2023 and paid him second-round money to buy him out of a commitment to Oregon, and they've now moved him from shortstop to third to first, where he played on Tuesday. His swing is really long, and I don't think he's picking up pitch types as well as he should be for someone in his second full season. He completely missed a bad 3-1 changeup at 89 mph from a right-hander (so with the platoon advantage) and didn't hit anything hard despite facing a lot of average or worse stuff. I don't think this is some great insight — he's struck out 34.2 percent of the time this year, even though he spent a month in Low A last year, too — but now that he's a first baseman his path to major-league value is narrowing.
Center fielder José Anderson raked in 10 games in the Arizona Complex League, so the Brewers promoted the 18-year-old to Low A, where he has been overmatched so far — and looked it on Tuesday. He's at .164/.256/.318 with a 32 percent strikeout rate so far, although it didn't look quite that bad in person. His swing is fine and he has bat speed, but he really expands the zone with two strikes and whiffed badly in two of his five trips to the plate in this game. The two times he put the ball in play were both on the first pitch, including a single on a 93-mph fastball and a pop-up off the end of his bat on a slider. I don't think he's ready to be here, at least not yet, but I'm also not going to write him off if he struggles all year. He showed some above-average range in center and nearly made a highlight-reel catch in left-center, getting to the ball but dropping it as he came down.
Carolina right-hander Bryce Meccage didn't have his best stuff, to put it mildly; he was mostly 92-93, touching 96 once, with a below-average slider and maybe an average curveball. He couldn't finish the slider at all, and Delmarva hitters were all over it. He threw harder and with better quality to the stuff in high school. It does look like he's throwing a two- and four-seamer now, and the two-seamer had some sink, but the slider just wasn't there.
Orioles scout Ryan Carlson signed Illinois high schooler Nate George in the 16th round last year, and all George has done so far in 2025 is hit: .383/.451/.556 in 23 games in the Florida Complex League, and .340/.392/.532 through his first 18 games in Low A. He's an 80 runner and plays like his hair is on fire — no, actually, he plays like there is someone right behind him who is on fire, and he is running for his life at all times. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone run that hard on the bases all the time, and I mean that as a compliment. He's not the fastest runner I've seen, to be clear, but he runs with purpose.
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He gets his hands a little too deep at the plate, not quite barring out, making up for it with quick hands and what seems like solid pitch recognition so far, keeping his hands in well on stuff inside and driving the ball the other way when he's pitched away. He's also at least an average defender in center. He's good; my gut reaction was that he might be really good.
Delmarva catcher Yasmil Bucce had a couple of doubles, one where he smoked a 3-0 breaking ball, and a single, and more importantly he showed a plus arm and at least enough in the receiving department to keep him alive as a catcher. I also liked his swing — I feel like I've gone soft here, liking so many swings in one game — and he seemed to have better pitch-type recognition than most of the other prospects in the game. His throws were hard and accurate. Delmarva had a couple of wild pitches while he was back there and he could definitely tighten up some of his blocking, but also none of these jokers could throw strikes, so I'm inclined to cut him a little slack.
The only Delmarva pitcher of note was right-hander Yeiber Cartaya, who was 92-94 from a low slot with a 40 slider and 45 changeup. He walked four in four innings and struck out 2.
Toronto promoted their 2024 first-rounder, right-handed pitcher Trey Yesavage, to Double A about three weeks ago, and I caught his debut at that level at Reading. It wasn't the outing he was hoping for as he walked the first three batters and struggled with command throughout his four innings.
Yesavage wasn't the same guy I saw at East Carolina 14 months earlier. He was 93-95 with 40 command this time, and only the splitter was as good as it was in college. He only threw a slider in college; the Jays have had him add a cutter, which has a similar look but comes in about 5 mph harder and may help him reduce the size of his reverse platoon split. He was spraying the ball for two innings in this outing, then settled into more ordinary wildness in the third and fourth, coming out of the game after 68 pitches even though his stuff hadn't dipped at all. His next outing was worse, and then he dominated Hartford in his most recent outing with eight strikeouts and just one walk in five innings.
(Top photo of Made: Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)