The Base Ball Writers’ Association of America have completed their yearly voting, and the 2023 class for the Baseball Hall of Fame has been completed. The contemporary baseball committee, working back in December, elected Fred McGriff, and the spring round of voting added Scott Rolen to that class. Todd Helton saw his share of voting take a leap (75% of voters have to approve a player’s elevation to the Hall), and Helton has five more years of eligibility. Billy Wagner only has two more years remaining, and while his voting share also increased, the longtime closer faces a more uncertain future. Andruw Jones has seen his voting jump each year as well, and he has four years of eligibility remaining. As a 10-time Gold Glover with 434 home runs, and as a contributor on a dominant Atlanta Braves franchise, he had a peak of about nine seasons. Now, let’s take a look at some of the most tantalizing right-handed pitching prospects today for your MLB Betting consideration .
MLB News: Top 10 RHP Prospects for 2023
Andrew Painter (Philadelphia, ETA 2023)
Painter’s control is elite to this point; at the age of 19, he walked just two hitters in 28 ⅓ innings at Double-A Reading, and he posted a 6.2% walk rate across three different levels, the best rate for teenage pitchers (he’s 19) with at least 70 innings pitched in 2022. For the entire season, he had a 1.56 ERA, 155 strikeouts and a WHIP of 0.89.
Grayson Rodriguez (Baltimore, 2023)
Rodriguez has a changeup in the mid-80s that looks like a fastball out of the release until it drops below the batter’s swing. Lefties only hit .157 against Rodriguez in 2022, in large part due to that vanishing change. He has four different pitches and plus control.
Eury Perez (Miami, 2023)
Perez’s off-speed pitch is also a thing of beauty, which helped him limit left-handed batters to a .204 average in limited exposure in 2022.
Daniel Espino (Cleveland, 2023)
Espino was drafted 24th overall in 2019, and last spring, he was regularly hitting 98-100 on the radar gun and occasionally getting as high as 103 during spring training. He made four starts at Double-A Akron, and his speed stayed high as he fanned 35 batters in 18 ⅓ innings. However, an injury ended his 2022. He’s back and hopes to show more durability.
Espino also has a slider that hits the low 90s, so it acts more horizontally than the traditional slider – and has fastball speed. He has also shown he can vary the speed of his slider, so sitting on that big fastball really isn’t an option.
Hunter Brown (Houston, 2023)
Brown came to the big club in September and was added to the playoff roster, primarily because of his curve, which he throws in the low 80s. It’s a 12-to-6 pitch that has the bite to get hitters to swing, and it is his main secondary pitch against lefties since he lacks a serviceable changeup. His curveball generated a 30.4 percent whiff rate and a .148 opponent batting average.
Gavin Stone (L.A. Dodgers, 2023)
Stone also has a mid-80s changeup that generates lots of swings and misses. Lefties only hit .216 against him in 2022 because they could not deal with that offspeed offering. He has struck out 306 batters in 212 ⅔ innings in four full-season levels, and he has solid control with each of his three above-average pitches.
Others to keep an eye on:
- Taj Bradley (Tampa Bay, 2023)
- Bobby Miller (L.A. Dodgers, 2023)
- Gavin Williams (Cleveland, 2023)
- Mick Abel (Philadelphia, 2024)
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