Prospect Promotion Incentive Ep. 44: Walk Much?

Yeah, so we have no idea who each other went with, just the name in here.

I took Aaron Walton, outfield prospect in Cleveland.

You can maybe find him at the back end of top 100 lists or just outside, depending on where you're looking.

But he's a 2025 competitive balance round B pick, so 66th overall out of college.

And I came to comp him to Chicken Wing Day because when I sorted the – um fan graphs leaderboards for hit by pitch as in a guy leaning over the plate with a chicken wing out I don't know if that's how he's up there but he's in he's in the high up there on the leaderboard of hits by pitch hit hit by pitches hits by pitch he gets hit by too many pitches um and and I was looking for anyone that has any sort of prospect pedigree at the top of that list And I didn't know much about Walton, so I dug in.

Looks to be a power-speed-field kind of combo.

Hit tool appears to be a problem if there is going to be one.

But in 79 games at high A so far this year, he slashed 275, 399, 503 for a 132 WRC+.

And he's spent 10 games at AA.

So recent promo as well and at AA.

He's been starting a little bit, but gosh darn it, he's still getting on base.

He's been hit four times in his first 10 games at AA.

So the man's really doing it.

That's 21 times he's been hit in 89 games this year.

So really got that chicken wing out there.

And Walton looks like – Same with you about the hit tool.

It's been an interesting result from a results perspective for his power and speed.

He's got 15 home runs and 23 stolen bases.

That's a solid combo.

He does strike out 26% of the time.

So we'll see how that matures in AA.

But either way, he's getting on base and he's doing it via the hit by pitch more often than not.

that is really funny.

I was challenging myself before you jumped on to try to figure out why you picked Aaron Walton.

And I really love the justification there.