Slade Heathcott has had an eventful 4 games to start the season with the Charleston Riverdogs. He’s hit .500/.474/1.167 with 2 singles, 4 doubles, a triple, and two home runs. This comes following his first professional season where he hit just 16 doubles, 3 triples, and 2 home runs in 76 games. A lot of Yankee fans were rightfully skeptical that Heathcott’s .258/.359/.352 debut was good enough for a 1st round pick and prospect of his caliber. After everyone was insisting for over a year that he really did have power, Heathcott displayed it, for at least this week.
Heathcott is doing everything he can to be compared to former Yankees prospect Austin Jackson. Both players were drafted by the Yankees as superior athletes without much baseball polish. Both are fast center fielders who hit the ball hard, take walks, and strike out too much. Both started their second full season after being drafted by repeating Low-A ball in Charleston at the age of 20. Hopefully, Heathcott will follow Jackson’s path with a major breakout in his age 20 season, rocketing up to High-A ball and on to top-100 prospect lists.
While Jackson comparisons are inevitable, the two players are very different. Austin Jackson was always a big of an enigma of a hitter: he had an opposite field swing that generated a lot of hits, but not much power. His swing was often compared to Derek Jeter in that way. He consistently put up sky-high BABIPs thanks to his swing, allowing him to hit .300 despite very high strikeout rates. Heathcott isn’t that kind of hitter. He’s more of a strong pull-and-up-the-middle guy who takes walks. He has a stronger arm, generates more power at the plate, and is overall considered a better defender in center field than Jackson was in the low minors. He won’t hit .300 with his current strike out rate, but he could hit 25 or more home runs if things go right.
The important thing about Heathcott is that his power was always just projected. He was a raw, unfinished athlete whom the Yankees drafted as a risky project who hit for basically zero power in his debut. The Yankees pushed him a little faster than they push most high school prospects, but besides that he hadn’t shown any real signs of power development up until now. He’s got a long way to go – a hot week is just a hot week – but its worth noting that he’s already matched his 2010 home run total. That’s more of a statement about his 2010 season than 2011, but its worth noting. If Heathcott turns it on and starts to preview his 25 home-run potential, he could become as good of a hitting prospect as any prospect in this organization not named Jesus Montero. Brett Gardner has demonstrated that center fielders who play gold glove quality defense don’t need to hit a ton in the majors to be very valuable players.
Projecting a player to a comparison is very difficult when that player is still in A-ball, but guys like Chris Young, Andres Torres, Colby Rasmus and even Alex Rios come to mind. Lots of K’s, some solid power, and speed and defense in the outfield. But really, pick your favorite 5-tool outfielder, and you’ll have a guy whom Heathcott could project into.
If Heathcott follows Austin Jackson’s path, he should earn a promotion to High-A Tampa before midseason. He’d spend 2012 in Double-A, and start 2013 in Triple-A. That means his ETA would be mid-to-late 2013 or 2014 spring training. Obviously a lot could go wrong on that schedule, but things could go right too. The Yankees could really push him this season and 2012, so he gets some limited Triple-A time that year. That would put his ETA in the early-2013 range. But that would only be the case if we’re seeing a true breakout – something like .270/.370/.500 in the low minors in 2011, with 20+ home runs and a few less strikes than last year. If that happens, and it is definitely within the range of possibilities, you’re looking at the Yankees’ next top-20 prospect in all of baseball, and the one hitter other than Sanchez who could potentially jump the Killer-B’s in internal rankings of the Yankee system.
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He consistently put up sky-high BABIPs thanks to his swing, allowing him to hit .300 despite very high strikeout rates.
Really? I didn’t know that. Maybe A-Jax is not the regression candidate we all thought he was after last year.
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I always liked Slade. Firstly, his is the Cadillac of ballplayer names. Also I remember reading about him after he was drafted, and some of the so-called “character questions.” The scouts talked about his questionable family background, then one of them said something mind-bogglingly stupid: the scout questioned Slade’s character because of what he saw Slade do at a high school all-star game. Apparently Ozzie Smith was the guest of honor, and Slade did Ozzie’s famous flip on the field as a tribute to the Wizard…and in the scout’s mind, doing that flip meant that Slade had questionable character.
I was extremely pro-Slade after that anecdote. I’m happy if the kids today even know who Ozzie Smith was. That was an awesome gesture, and if he fell to the Yankees because of scouting crap like that, I’m grateful.
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Heathcott’s character was questioned because of issues involving his parents, a bit of it made up and some of it real, rather than because of anything he did.
As to the initial post, you mentioned that Gardner proves a Gold Glover with a weak bat can still be very valuable. I disagree. Gardner with a .320 OBP is a pinch runner and a defensive replacement. His bat, though it lacks HR power, is what makes his speed so valuable because he gets on base. His patience and his ability to work counts wears down even good pitching, but at the end of the day its his ability to get on base that makes him an above-average CF. No metric I’ve seen suggests that great OF defense can really make up for poor offense because even a great CF still only makes a difference of maybe double-digit runs over the course of a season.
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[...] year removed from nagging injuries, his comfort level at the plate has seen a vast improvement and Heathcott has began the season on a tear. Forty at bats into his season, he leads the South Atlantic League in runs scored (13) and triples [...]