With school letting out for the summer (for all you good boys and girls at least), it’s time to hand out some report cards. Since our shiniest hobby prospect set finally finished releasing new editions, we're revisiting 2023 Bowman. It's still very much the most relevant release in a 2023 baseball product sense.

How are the star pupils doing? Who’s exceeding expectations? Who’s failing? Let’s take a look.

There are a lot of ‘Incompletes’ on the board among the Bowman 1st’s in this product still of course, expected or not. Druw Jones is one. All but two 2022 DSL prospects are also in that bucket. We’re not going to talk about them. We’re not even going to grade a player like Vaun Brown, who as of June 1 (which is the date from which I’m pulling my data in this piece) only had 68 AB.

Instead, we’ll relate back to our preview piece and talk about all the Tier 1 names who have played, then go over a few prospects who are passing with flying colors, and a few who are unexpectedly close to failing.

Tier 1 Review

Junior Caminero - I don’t know how much more of a teacher’s pet Junior could prove himself to be. Now having reached Double-A as a teenager, we’re running out of superlatives. Among teenagers, he has more XBH than anyone (including Jackson Holliday), is 2nd in HR with 11, and is 3rd in batting average. He’s continued to show a little bit of a strikeout issue. But that’s just like saying he only turns in all his homework on time, and not a day early. He’s perfectly fine there. This clearly looks like a star in the making. Grade: A+

Spencer Jones - Nothing wrong with being a B student, baby. He’s showing a bit of the fear as well as a bit of the potential we wrote about in our preview piece. The 26 XBH (7 HR) are very nice and certainly a gold star to Jones’ credit. But a 35 K% / 6 BB% is concerning - it’s making the Yankees’ decision to keep him at High-A for now easy. Still, I would say he is meeting expectations. Grade: B

Cam Collier - We’re going to grade on a curve, as we always should, for age with respect to level. Collier will be just 18 all season. With that in mind, he’s been at Low-A since day one. He’s put up a sub-10% SwStr and is one of only three players at his age with multiple HR (he has 4). There’s nothing concerning about anything he’s doing - now we just need to see how the rest of the season plays out to see if he can remove the minus from this grade. Grade: A-

Kyle Harrison - Harrison was a star pupil last year, and he still looks like a really good one. But there’s something going on under the hood that’s not quite right. His BB/9 sits at an unseemly 8.1 for the season, and that’s not a result of a single blowup game. Is his bullpen risk increasing? Maybe. But he’s turned it around a bit in May - the BB/9 dropped to a still high 4.8, and his ERA was 3.37. The stuff is and has always been there – he’s been striking out over 40% of hitters all season. Being close to graduation, the only question is whether he does so with honors or not. Grade: C+

Gabriel Gonzalez - If Junior Caminero is the teacher’s pet, Gonzalez looks like the most likely to succeed. He’s played like a guy who’s not long for Modesto. Among qualified teens not named Jackson Holliday, he’s 1st in BA, 2nd in OBP, 3rd lowest in K%, and 4th in SLG. There’s absolutely nothing to dislike in Gonzalez’s profile. Find something. I dare you. He's the kid that gets all the stickers on his term paper. Grade: A+

Gleider Figuereo — Gleider is literally being schooled in how to be a hitter right now in Low-A. His plate discipline is being intentionally reined in - evidenced by his SwStr going from over 20% to 13% coupled with his P/PA going from 2.2 to 3.9. It’s a mitigating factor to his struggles, but we can’t just forgive it completely. He only has 7 XBH in 37 games. For a guy who had 19 in roughly the same time period last year, there’s nothing to call what he’s done thus far but a struggle. Still though, we don’t fail our young-for-the-level players, and Gleider doesn’t turn 19 until the end of the month. Grade: C-

exceeding expectations

This is the A-team. Here we’ll take a look at a selection of players who are our star students so far this year. It’s not relative to what we expected them to do. If they’re performing well, they’re here.

Hector Rodriguez is the only A+ not mentioned above. We had him in Tier 3 in our preview, and that seems like it’s at least one notch low. Last year, he was quite the dynamic raw offensive weapon but there were concerns about it continuing. But despite being forced to look at more pitches this year, success has indeed continued. His K% is up, but still under 20%. He’s still a heavy pull hitter and extremely aggressive but his BB% has ticked up to a more useful 7%. Most importantly, he’s still finding meaningful contact with regularity (.290/.535/.523), and that’s why he gets these full marks. Grade: A+

The deception of Ryan Clifford being an 11th Round pick didn’t fool anyone in the hobby. But like a new-to-the-school student who’s a bit of a mystery but seems the part, we don’t know until we see the performance. And man, has he ever performed. He was so unchallenged by Low-A (.488 OBP) the Astros quickly bumped the yet-to-be-20-YO to High-A in early May. It’s been more of a challenge for him there but he’s shown flashes of the power we expected him to have coming out of the Draft. There are some little flags of concern, but being young for the level allays them. Grade: A-

Ben Brown is now easily the #2 pitcher in this product (passing Wilmer Flores). If we exclude his one blowup outing, he has a 0.80 ERA with a 64/15 K/BB ratio across 40 innings on the year. Wow. This is across the AA/AAA levels too, so it’s literally the best the minors have to offer. Seems like it’s time for Mr. Brown to graduate and move on to the next challenge. What’s holding back the Cubs from calling him up? Command issues, and perhaps a longer view on what the organization is doing this year (is that ambiguous enough? I’m just trying to make up a 2nd excuse here). Grade: A

Jorge Ruiz was a massive undersell in Tier None of our preview. Can you really blame us though? He still doesn’t project to have much HR pop. And he’s actually improved in-season at a new level! All the while he’s hit over .300 with a sub-20 K% and .400 OBP, but his ISO improved from .040 in April to .224 in May/June. That’s a mark of true emergent gap-to-gap pop. Oh, and this kid is still 18 for a few more weeks. I’d be shocked if the Angels, as aggressive as they’ve been as an organization, don’t move him to High-A by the end of the month. I don’t know if he really has star potential in the majors, but he’s my pick as the highest riser in this product. Grade: A

I have to laugh that Juan Brito was left hanging out at Low-A in an organization that doesn’t know their head from their elbow for all of 2022, and then was traded to the Guardians and has already been promoted to Double-A. In general he’s shown more of the same - elite SwStr% that could be a potential plus hit tool in the future, and a little bit of pop. Positionally, he’s still a 2B but he’s seeing time at SS & 3B too - so he’s not being pigeonholed anymore. Twenty-one and now at AA, he’s young for the level. He’s a solid riser to Tier 3 by the benefit of being in a competent organization. It’s like being transferred to a different school with much better resources. Grade: A-

I’m breaking character to speak directly about a hobby-price relationship. Maybe the hobby is valuing Juan Carela properly as a Tier None. I don’t think a ton has changed with his projection, and the bad taste of what he did in High-A last year lingers. But he’s another pitcher with a single blowup outing, without which his ERA would be 1.56 with a 10.9 K/9 and sub-1.00 WHIP. So, there’s something to be said about turning around his performance in his return to High-A, and he’s still only 21. So, he’s a riser in performance. It could be smoke but he’s dirt cheap – around $10 delivered for a base auto currently– so the buy-in risk is very low. Grade: A-

If it weren’t for some unexpected performances in the majors & David Hamilton in the minors, Red Sox fans would be clamoring for Wilyer Abreu right about now. He’s shown himself to be just about ready, but the path isn’t clear. Grade: A-

Justin Crawford is boring in the best way possible. He just keeps hitting and stealing bases. Being 19, we shouldn’t expect to have an accurate projection of his power getting to 45 grade, or landing more around 35 yet. But it’d be nice to see some. Grade: A-

In never seeing the ACL, Nelson Rada & Luis Lara skipped a grade, essentially. Neither has disappointed. That, in itself, means they’re exceeding expectations. But more than that, both sport an OBP over .400. Rada has shown off his blazing speed, while Lara has flirted with a sub-10% K% since his call-up. Grades: both A-

Quickly, the other A & A- Grades were Dominic Canzone, Jose Peroza, Carlos Jorge, Jackson Ferris, Zack Gelof, Moises Ballesteros. They’ve all been as-advertised or better.

If you want to make a personal call and manually adjust a few B+ to A-, much as a teacher who rewards a student’s intangibile classroom behavior, I won’t fight you on Edouard Julien, Xavier Isaac, Roman Anthony, Caden Dana, Shay Whitcomb, Luis Ravelo, or Dayan Frías.

Not Meeting Expectations

I won’t forcibly use school-related figurative language in this section - it’s not really a laughing matter to call out negatives. Some prospects in this set just never had high hobby expectations. For instance, nobody thought a guy like Adam Crampton would show much offensive ability, and he’s been true to form. There are also several expensive buy-ins that haven’t done great but we knew they were raw going in - Gleider (see above) is one of those. That’s not what this section is for. This section is for players who we had some real expectations for - the time was now to make their mark in the minors. These are the guys who are in real danger of failing in 2023.

We cautioned as hard as we could in our preview piece that this might happen with Jacob Berry. Every nightmare scenario has come true so far for the 2022 6th overall pick. He’s played exclusively 3B but he’s been bad defensively. His ISO, as a physically mature 22 YO, is under .120. He’s hitting well under .200 with an OBP under .250. Simply put, he doesn’t look like a future big leaguer right now. But he is in High-A unlike some college bats, so if there’s a little bit to forgive, that’s it. Grade: D-

I take responsibility for being an engineer of the Axel Sanchez hype train. I apologize. There were signs that his approach was worrisome, but I never would have expected the worries to immediately become the demons they are. He’s simply been outmatched by the more advanced pitching in High-A, and hasn’t shown signs of adjusting yet (K% ~30, SwStr% that’s ballooned from 12% to 17%). He’s also taken a step back defensively, but connecting that to his offensive woes is probably fair. He’s only 20 all year and still could be a dynamic player, but I‘m no longer making that bet. Grade: D+

Nobody in this checklist, to date, fits the literal definition of failing a level except Ambioris Taveras. He was reassigned to the complex a few weeks ago after posting a 73/14 K/BB ratio in 39 games. We had placed him in Tier 2 due to possessing great raw power in our preview, but until he can make significantly more contact, it’s unusable. It’s easy to say he’s a Tier None player now, but don’t forget him - he is only 19, and development is not linear. Grade: F

William Lugo is a prospect who really needed to prove last year wasn’t a fluke to show that he has potential as a big league regular. He started his season a little late but it can’t be excused anymore. He’s regressed. He’s at the same High-A level he finished last year and thus far has posted one of the worst SLG in all of the level. For a player who needed his bat to carry him, it’s a pretty big red flag and it goes without saying that he’s squarely slid in Tier None. Grade: F