Red Sox power prospect Niko Kavadas ‘hits the ball 450 feet pretty easily’

Niko Kavadas celebrates as he runs the bases after hitting a three-run home run for Notre Dame against Duke on March 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Kamil Krzaczynski)

BOSTON — Red Sox prospect Niko Kavadas crushed 26 homers, 25 doubles and one triple in 120 games while earning two promotions this season. The 2021 11th-round draft pick out of Notre Dame went from Low-A Salem to High-A Greenville to Double-A Portland.

“Niko Kavadas hits the ball 450 feet pretty easily,” Red Sox director of player development Brian Abraham said. “I was just in Portland watching them in the playoffs and he hit one over their bullpen out in right field.”

Kavadas was named the 2022 Red Sox minor league Offensive Player of the Year. He has plus power and tremendous plate discipline. He was the only Red Sox minor leaguer to draw 100 or more walks this season. He finished with 102 walks in 515 plate appearances (19.8% walk percentage). He had a 29.5% strikeout rate.

Wilyer Abreu, who the Red Sox acquired from the Astros in the Christian Vázquez trade, walked 114 times this season but 78 of them came in Houston’s system.

“My goal every year is to have as close to a 1-to-1 walk-to-strikeout ratio as possible,” Kavadas said. “So that is part of my game. Plate discipline is something that allows me to hit for power, too. Because when you’re disciplined in the box, then they have to come at you. You don’t have to chase. I think that’s just a really big part of my game.”

The 23-year-old posted a .443 on-base percentage and .547 slugging percentage between the three levels. He saw a difference between High-A pitching and Double-A pitching.

“I think the command is a little bit better,” Kavadas said. “I think the stuff is very similar. You’re going to see 100 (mph) on any given night no matter what level you’re at. When you get into Double-A, there are no free passes. When you walk, you earned the walk. When you get a hit, you earned the hit. It’s a really competitive game and the command is good and the stuff is good. It’s a challenge every single day.”

The left-handed hitting first baseman — who is listed at 6-foot-1, 235 pounds — is not surprised his power translated so quickly from college to the pros.

“With my build, I’m kind of larger, I think I handle a wood bat better,” Kavadas said. “And I think that adjustment was a little bit smaller for me because of my physique. My sophomore year in college, I played in the Cape Cod League (wood bats). I hit nine or 10 homers. And I didn’t feel like power was something that got sacrificed when I made the jump from a metal to a wood bat. So I wasn’t really concerned about that heading into the season.”

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