Glendale notes: Engel seeks one more tool

To watch Adam Engel run the bases or play the field is to see a peak athlete in form. The No. 17 White Sox prospect stole 65 bases this season for the aptly named Class A Advanced Winston-Salem Dash and has earned an above-average 60 grade from MLB.com for his work in center field. 

So what's holding Engel back from being considered one of the better outfield prospects not only in the White Sox system, but the Minors as a whole? Namely, his hitting, and he's well aware of that.

Since batting .236 (while stealing 41 bases) as a junior at Louisville, questions about his hitting ability have followed the 2013 19th-rounder everywhere. In 2015, Engel produced a .251/.335/.369 slash line with seven homers, nine triples and 23 doubles in 136 games in the Carolina League. With the White Sox sending him to Glendale in the Arizona Fall League, that hit tool is once again a point of emphasis.

"It's something they've always been trying to get me to do, and something I want to do obviously," he said. "But hitting's not exactly the easiest thing to do. Obviously, the more balls I put in play, especially on the ground, the better I'll be. That strategy works better for me than it would, say, a power-hitting first baseman. Anything I can do to utilize my speed tool is going to make me a better player."

The numbers bear out his argument. Engel, who bats from the right side, has produced relatively high BABIPs (batting averages on balls in play) at every stop he's made in the White Sox system, which shouldn't come as a surprise for a player whose speed can grab an extra hit on occasion. At Winston-Salem this summer, he had a BABIP of .321 -- signalling that Engel's numbers could have been even worse if that stat had been closer to the typical average BABIP of .300.

Instead, Engel's problems mostly come from the balls he doesn't put in play. He struck out 132 times with the Dash this summer, or in 21.7 percent of his plate appearances, and that's led those around Engel to push the value of contact.

"It's all about getting in good counts," said the outfielder. "The hitting coach here [Nelson Prada] wants to make sure I put the ball in play with two strikes. I struck out a little too much this year. But it's not always a two-strike thing. If you can put the ball in play before getting down to two strikes, that works too. Avoiding the strikeout is a big key right now."

"Just stop striking out," is of course easier said than done, especially at the higher levels where pitchers have better command and more diverse repertoires. But if more contact can lead to averages in the high .200's and on-base percentages in the mid-.300's, that might be enough, along with his speed and defensive play, to carry Engel to the game's top level.

"You know, I would say if I could add that tool to my game, I would have a good chance to move forward," he said. "Obviously, that's not my decision about where I'd go. I'm just trying to maximize the ability I've been given, but hopefully, if I do max out that potential, it will be at the highest level."

For what it's worth, in a relatively small sample thus far, the 23-year-old has been outperforming expectations in the Fall League. Through Monday, he had a .417/.517/.583 line with four doubles, six runs scored, three RBIs and only two strikeouts (with five walks) in 24 plate appearances with the Desert Dogs. In a glimpse of what could be, he also leads the AFL with four steals in five attempts.

"It's hard to be negative right now, I'll say that," Engel said. "I don't want to be ultra-positive, because you have to take the good with the bad equally and bring everything back to the middle. More than anything, I want to stay consistent. Even if I carry this production out to the rest of the fall, I don't want to carry expectations into next season. Just take it and still try to improve come the spring."

In brief

Reese's pieces of hitting: Pirates' No. 6 prospect Reese McGuire was last week's guest on the MiLB.com podcast, "The Show Before the Show," and primarily talked about his work behind the plate. But the 20-year-old catcher has flashed a good offensive approach early on in the Fall League by going 4-for-14 (.286) with two doubles, three walks and only one strikeout in his first four games. After McGuire produced just a .595 OPS in the Florida State League this summer, the Bucs would love to see those numbers hold in Arizona.

Nothing elementary about Holmes: After posting a 5.07 ERA at Double-A Corpus Christi, Astros left-hander Brian Holmes needed a good Arizona Fall League to carry him into the offseason, and on that statistic alone, he's gotten it. The 6-foot-4 left-hander has yet to allow an earned run in the AFL through three starts (eight innings). But there's more than meets the eye there. Despite averaging 9.4 K/9 during his Minor League career, he's fanned only four in his eight innings and has walked six in that span. 

Reed nothing into it: If you had any reason to worry about Astros' No. 5 prospect A.J. Reed after he started 0-for-9 in his first three games, you can forget about it. The 22-year-old first baseman, who hit 34 homers and had a 1.044 OPS during the regular season, has hits in four straight games and multiple hits in his last two contests for the Desert Dogs. His average is up to .280 through seven games.