Wild Rice For Landon - Oreo Jones
Book of Days - Oddisee, Soulstice
This isn’t about the top prospect. You want to know that? I still think it’s Jordan Lawlar, but most think it’s Ryan Waldschmidt. Slade Caldwell has his fans as well, but he is 5’9” with a 51% ground ball percentage, so you do what you want with that. I’m here to talk about a prospect that does some truly interesting things.
Jose Fernandez is that guy. Jose is a 6’3” shortstop with an athletic build. Big, athletic guys playing young for their level (21 in AA) are cool. Watching the organization add him to the 40-man roster right when he turned 22 in September is also cool.
Jose did things this season he had never done before. He became a middle of the order bat for the final few months, whereas he had normally hit in the bottom third of the order up until this year. A 2021 international signing out of Venezuela, he was sent to the complex rather than the DSL at just 17 years old. It took him two full seasons down there before he moved on. A third season might have had him running around with golf clubs in a rage like Danny McBride’s Sonny in the movie Arizona.
Fortunately, he moved up before the meltdown. In 2023, he got his first taste of full season ball at age 19. In 2024, he started with another promotion to High-A before being sent to Double-A for two games to finish the season at age 20.
What I like is that those stats didn’t necessarily warrant the aggressive promotions. It would have been very easy for the Dbacks to hold him back to double up in Low-A or High-A, but they kept moving him up. He has some brass within the organization who are firmly on Team Jose, and that faith started to be rewarded this season. 2025 was a tale of two halves for him.
The first half was more of the same, though there were some hidden improvements. His strikeouts were down and his line drive percentage was up to 25% from the 20% mark of previous seasons. But the second half is where the “interesting” really kicks in.
That is something to pay attention to. It was enough for COLOSSUS to score him as the 3rd highest hitting prospect for the Dbacks. The improvements he made resulted in him hitting just three fewer home runs in those 58 games than in his previous 348 games combined. His HR/FB% jumped from 7.6% to 15.7%. The broadcasts kept saying “we have seen the big exit velos,” but I only caught 105 mph and 108 mph, though a couple of those bombs cleared 420’. I’m not sure what “big exit velos” means to a Double-A broadcast, but a few of those looked like nukes, and on the final one, he was able to flick a pitch from down and away for a pull-side home run. I tried to see if I could find a specific reason in the swing.
There might be a slight change to his hand placement, but all in all, I couldn’t see any massive mechanical changes. It’s likely just a 6’3” kid starting to fill out, getting comfortable, and letting his tools eat. His splits vs. LHP and RHP were solid without any glaring issues. His speed is just okay; you can see how his stolen bases dipped in the second half, but his efficiency actually improved. The broadcasts say he can play a good shortstop, but there were a lot of errors. Brendan Gawlowski noted the same issue that he was error prone when he was rushed.
What I think is interesting is that the Dbacks kept showing faith even when the stats weren’t quite there yet. They protected him with that 40-man addition, and his second half showed exactly what can happen when it all comes together.
Jose Fernandez, remember the name. If he starts 2026 the way he finished 2025, you’re going to be hearing it a lot.
