3 Guardians prospects who can take advantage of recent flurry of minor-league promotions

The trade deadline has come and gone across MLB, which means plenty of adjustments across MLB’s minor league landscape. 

Whether a team was a buyer or seller at the deadline, the weeks after lead to plenty of promotions across every level as teams either add new talent to their prospect pool, or adjust to the loss of prospects who were traded away. 

This year’s iteration of the Guardians is no different, as Cleveland’s big league additions came at the cost of eight prospects. 

With that in mind, here are three rising Guardians prospects who stand to benefit from those minor league changes. 

The Guardians minor league reshuffling could help some top prospects get closer to making a big league impact

OF Jace LaViolette 

It makes sense to start this list with the biggest prospect to earn a promotion. 

Although he was left out of the team’s waves of prospect promotions in the middle of July, he finally got the call to Akron over the weekend after the Guardians traded Nick Mitchell to the Nationals as a part of the return for Foster Griffin.

He made his Double-A debut last night and went 1-for-2 with a double, stolen base and four walks.

LaViolette has all the power the Guardians are missing (19 homers at High-A Lake County), but a lot of the swing-and-miss that could harm their outfield (38% strikeout rate). 

While LaViolette hasn’t immediately jumped off the page the way some of his draft compatriots have, his promotion gives him a great opportunity to make a statement before the offseason and whatever comes next after the CBA ends. 

The Guardians have two other top outfield prospects in Akron in the form of Jaison Chourio and Aaron Walton, and LaViolette will have to prove that he has what it takes to follow their trajectory. 

OF Juneiker Caceres

Although Caceres’ promotion came before the trade deadline, it would be impossible to talk about prospect promotions without talking about his move to High-A. 

Caceres played in 52 games at Single-A Hill City before earning the promotion, where he slashed .320/.418/.538 with 10 home runs, 41 RBI and 31 walks compared to 23 strikeouts. 

He’s played in 12 games at High-A since getting promoted, and has had a .277/.370/.426 with one home run and five RBI. While those numbers aren’t as good as what he was doing at Single-A, it’s important to remember he’s just 18 and is more than four years younger than the league’s average age. 

If Caceres is able to keep this up, he could follow the same path as Ralphy Velazquez, who was playing in Triple-A at 20 and is on the cusp of earning his first big league promotion at 21. 

He’s one of the best young players in the Guardians’ system, and a clear rising star. 

RHP Ryan Degges

Even if Degges doesn’t have the same kind of star power as LaViolette and Caceres (he’s not ranked in MLB Pipeline’s list of the Guardians’ top 30 prospects) , he could end up being just as important to the Guardians’ future. 

Cleveland acquired Degges from the Phillies at the start of July in exchange for $250,000 in international bonus pool money. He was pitching in High-A with the Phillies before being traded. 

He made one appearance at High-A Lake County before being promoted to Double-A Akron last week, where he tossed 4 ⅓ scoreless innings in his debut.

While Degges is still years away from helping the Guardians on the big league level, his promotion helps add a bit more weight to their thin minor league pitching depth after they traded away three pitching prospects in their deal for Griffin. 

Cleveland’s among baseball’s best at turning unheralded pitchers into big league contributors, but you can only use that team-building method if you have some homegrown pitching talent to fall back on whenever a plan inevitably hits the wall. 

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