Dodgers Prospect Notes: Undrafted Austin Gauthier is Derek Jeter (?!?!?!), Amaya seems to be breaking out, Rodriguez bounceback continues, others

Jacob Amaya (Photo: Cody Bashore)

May 13th, 2022 Scoreboard

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What Jacob Amaya is doing at the plate with Tulsa is demanding attention at this point — he went 2/5 Friday, and he hit his 8th bomb for the Drillers:

Amaya is doing this with a pretty impressive combination of plate discipline, contact, and batted ball profile:

Amaya currently has the highest flyball rate of his career (43.8%), his second-highest line drive rate (26.0%), and his lowest ground ball rate (30.1%). It will take more than a month of action to cement whether something clicked long-term, but at the moment, it is a fantastic development that will be watched closely going forward.

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Luis Rodriguez hit his 2nd homer for Rancho:

Kyle Glaser from Baseball America was in the house, he had this to say about it:

It was reported widely that the #1 IFA out of Venezuela looked overmatched in the Arizona Complex League, that a combination of poor swing decisions, weak bat to ball, and growth that moved him out of center field led to a plummet in various rankings — in a single year, FanGraphs dropped him from 19th on the Dodgers to completely out of their top 51.

It looks like a redemption tour might be kicking off, and Rodriguez is at least opening some eyes.

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Undrafted free agent signee Austin Gauthier hit his first professional homer for Rancho, a walkoff shot in the bottom of the ninth, and Glaser had some positive remarks about him as well:

Gauthier is slashing .321/.471/.444, and he’s doing it with a swing that looks a bit familiar:

You can’t shame the shameless.

Chad’s Note: I went even more shameless in the title as: 1) a joke and 2) an experiment.

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Miguel Vargas had a solid game for Oklahoma City, going 2/4 with a walk, but it was on the bases where he impressed, a part of his game that is rarely discussed:

Vargas is slashing /307/.416/.480, and he has more walks (24) than strikeouts (23). He has never pulled off that feat in any of his seasons, and his walk rate of 15.6% is a career best.

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Lastly, Oklahoma City scored their winning run in the 9th in an anticlimactic fashion:

W is a W.

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