The Prospect Stock Watch: Jahmai Jones, Taylor Ward, Griffin Canning

To say things have gone very, very well for the Los Angeles Angels so far in 2018 would be an understatement. The club sits quite handily in first place in the American League West division and features two of the most exciting players in all of baseball in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. The one thing the club hasn’t done exceptionally well in recent memory, though, is develop players. It’s had a bottom third system for quite some time now.

But things are beginning to change for the better. I looked at the Angels Top 10 prospects list back in mid-March and identified a list that was slowly evolving into an impressive collection of players. Today, I’m going to take an early peek at how the top prospect, Jahmai Jones, is doing… along with one player I identified as a “just-missed” sleeper in pitcher Griffin Canning and a third player that I didn’t talk about at all in Taylor Ward.

The Angels system is loaded with athletic, toolsy outfielders and I had the Top 3 players in the system listed as outfielders Jones, Jo Adell, and Brandon Marsh. And the organization also has some pretty impressive players at the big league level that can play the outfield. So perhaps it shouldn’t have shocked me to see that Jones has played all of his games in high-A ball at… second base?

This is where we clearly get back to the athletic part. And there’s some history to it, as well, as Jones played second base in high school. So, why not? After all, Ian Kinsler is a pretty solid player but he’s also 35 years old and the system didn’t have any “can’t miss” prospects earmarked for the keystone prior to the 2018 season. Things haven’t gone so well for Jones in the early going, though. He’s sporting an OPS below .600 and has made two errors in the first seven games. Worse yet, he’s now on the disabled list so we’re going to have to wait a little while longer to see how this experiment turns out.

OK, now to another conversion story in Taylor Ward. This one is actually a little weirder. He was a surprise first round pick (26th overall) back in 2015 after being known mostly as a defensive-minded catcher in college. He showed good offensive numbers in his pro debut but then didn’t hit much at all over the next two years. So apparently the club then decided to… move him to third base? In some ways, the move makes sense. He has a very strong arm but has suffered through some shoulder woes so this takes away the wear and tear from constantly throwing the ball. But it sure puts pressure on his hit tool — especially given his lack of track record in that regard.

So how are things going so far? Well, famously with the bat. Ward, 24, is hitting .457 through 10 games and has almost as many walks as strikeouts (6-7 BB-K). It’s been a different story on defence, though, with four errors in eight games. It’s early in the experiment so bumps in the road are to be expected. Still, this move continues to worry me as Ward has taken a significant hit in prospect value — unless that bat really takes off with less defensive pressure.

Let’s switch to the mound now and have a look at Griffin Canning. In planning the Angels Top 10 list for the 2018 season, I originally had Canning among those top prospects but the 2017 second round pick had yet to officially throw in pro ball and also came with some health question marks (following up a heavy college workload) so I shifted him off and down into the “sleeper” slot.

Pushed aggressively to high-A ball to open his career, Canning has looked great. He has yet to allow a run through his first two starts and has given up just four hits with 12 strikeouts through 8.2 innings. He’s not an overpowering guy but the right-hander has enough velocity to keep hitters honest and a four pitch mix that he can throw for strikes. A strong year — including further development with his breaking balls — could definitely push Canning up as the top arm in the system (there is not a ton of competition) and position him on a collision course with the Majors at some point in 2019 — if he can stay healthy.