Our final deep dive into the High-A numbers from 2025 takes us to the South Atlantic League. The Mets, Pirates, and Red Sox were among the teams to have loaded High-A rosters, and many of those impact prospects made a statistical impression, to say the least.
The traditional numbers
Twenty-six players had at least 10 home runs in the South Atlantic League, headlined by league leader Jeral Perez (White Sox) with 22. Esmerlyn Valdez, who hit at virtually every level he played at this past season, was second with 20.
However, what was more impressive regarding Valdez was how fast the Pirates outfielder was able to climb the charts. Valdez hit his 20 home runs in the SALLY in just 72 contests.
The 2025 hits king was 2024 second-rounder Emilien Pitre (Rays) with 120. It helped that Pitre played 118 games, fifth-most in the circuit. However, he made a lot of contact (24% Whiff%), which I’ll go over more in a further section.
Braves outfield prospect Pat Clohisy, the AFL leader in stolen bases, also led the SALLY with 60 stolen bases.
As for the pitchers, Rays prospect Marcus Johnson struck out the most batters in the league with 138. Herick Hernandez of the Atlanta Braves, despite a league-most 68 walks, was second in strikeouts with 127.
Whiff rates
Alright, let’s get into whiff rates. Here are the pitchers who had the highest Whiff% in the South Atlantic League:
| Player | MLB Team | Whiff% |
|---|---|---|
| Carson Jacobs | White Sox | 45.4% |
| Travis Sykora | Nationals | 44.9% |
| Brandon Clarke | Cardinals | 41.9% |
| Hayden Merda | Yankees | 41.3% |
| Payton Tolle | Red Sox | 41.1% |
| Saul Garcia | Mets | 40.9% |
| Victor Simeon | Rangers | 40.9% |
| Ryan Bourassa | Braves | 40.7% |
| Eduardo Rivera | Red Sox | 40.3% |
| Christian Tortosa | Phillies | 38.8% |
Given that it’s High-A, one would expect a lot of walks, a lot of swing-and-miss, and a lot of strikeouts across the board. That was indeed the case in the South Atlantic League, as 88 of the 211 pitchers who induced at least 200 swings had a Whiff% of 30% or greater.
The top dog among that group turned out to be 24-year-old undrafted free agent Carson Jacobs. Jacobs, a reliever, struck out 80 over 54.2 IP before he was promoted to Double-A Birmingham. He ended the year with 12 strikeouts over six innings with Glendale in the Arizona Fall League.
Following Jacobs was arguably the best prospect in the Nationals’ system, Travis Sykora. Behind him was Brandon Clarke, who rolled with High-A Greenville and was traded to St. Louis in the Sonny Gray trade this past November.
Payton Tolle, with a 41.1% Whiff%, also dominated in High-A before he made his MLB debut later on in the year.
Now, it is important to note something important about these Whiff% rates. Generally speaking, the more innings thrown — and conversely, the more swings induced — the higher likelihood that one will see a Whiff% lower than the one seen above. This can be attributed to several factors.
But the reason why I’ve set the threshold low is that a lot of high-end pitchers don’t stick at this level for long. Take Sykora, for example. The right-hander, who was recovering from offseason hip surgery in April, only needed six starts to strike out 47 over 29.2 IP. He was promoted to Double-A shortly before he required UCL reconstruction surgery.
Which makes what Braves pitching prospect Herick Hernandez did even more impressive. Out of the 889 induced swings (eighth-most in the SAL), Hernandez had a 35.2% Whiff%.
Among the bottom 10 in this metric was Rays prospect Gary Gill Hill. Hill induced the third-most swings (1,036) in the circuit, unsurprisingly given he threw the third-most innings (136.2 IP). However, he only had 107 strikeouts over 136 innings with Bowling Green. He is, though, a heavy ground-ball pitcher (I’ll get more into that later).
Flipping the script
Now, let’s take a look at the hitters who had the worst whiff rates:
| Player | MLB Team | Whiff% |
|---|---|---|
| Brenner Cox | Nationals | 47.4% |
| Wes Kath | White Sox | 45.8% |
| Albert Feliz | Red Sox | 45.3% |
| Ambioris Tavarez | Braves | 41.7% |
| Lonnie White Jr. | Pirates | 39.3% |
| Colin Houck | Mets | 39.2% |
| Carlos Colmenarez | Rays | 39.1% |
| Drew Vogel | Astros | 38.4% |
| Vance Honeycutt | Orioles | 37.9% |
| Nazzan Zanetello | Red Sox | 37.7% |
Sixty-three hitters among the ones who met the 300-swing criteria had a Whiff% of 30%. That group includes some strong hitters, including Esmerlyn Valdez (32.1%), Braden Montgomery (32.9%), and Devin Saltiban (33.5%).
Vance Honeycutt had the same swing-and-miss problem that bugged him as a North Carolina Tar Heel. Honeycutt was a first-round pick by the Orioles in 2024.
In the bottom 10 were a pair of Day 1 picks from 2023: Red Sox second-rounder Nazzan Zanetello and Mets first-rounder Colin Houck.
And, the best whiff rates:
| Player | MLB Team | Whiff% |
|---|---|---|
| Franklin Arias | Red Sox | 11.0% |
| Sam Antonacci | White Sox | 11.4% |
| Adrian Santana | Rays | 12.5% |
| Justin Riemer | Red Sox | 13.2% |
| Griff O’Ferrall | Orioles | 14.2% |
| Dylan Dreiling | Rangers | 16.4% |
| Raudelis Martinez | Rays | 17.1% |
| Will Verdung | Braves | 18.1% |
| Brendan Jones | Yankees | 18.2% |
| Alexander Vargas | Yankees | 18.3% |
Several of the players in this group, including Martinez and Vargas, had subpar campaigns. But not Arias, who slashed .265/.329/.380 over 87 games. Arias had 28 extra-base hits, six of which were home runs.
There were a few others who had great seasons, in terms of making consistent contact, who didn’t make this list. Carson Benge (19.3%), Ethan Anderson (20.7%), and Seaver King (21.7%) are among those individuals.
Hard-hit machines
Next up is the hard-hit metric:
| Player | MLB Team | Modified Hard-Hit% |
|---|---|---|
| Colin Houck | Mets | 18.4% |
| Yohairo Cuevas | Mets | 18.2% |
| Corey Collins | Mets | 18.1% |
| Parks Harber | Giants | 17.8% |
| Konnor Griffin | Pirates | 15.3% |
| Zach Ehrhard | Dodgers | 15.3% |
| Troy Schreffler Jr. | Mets | 14.8% |
| Jacob Reimer | Mets | 14.6% |
| Callan Moss | Pirates | 14.5% |
| Eduardo Lopez | Phillies | 14.4% |
Despite Houck’s swing-and-miss concerns, he can hit the ball when his bat connects. Houck had 11 extra-base hits in 58 games with the Cyclones.
There are some other familiar names on this list of 10, including Pirates prospect Konnor Griffin.
Best ground-ball men
Lastly, here are the 10 pitchers from the South Atlantic League who had the highest GB% in the circuit:
| Player | MLB Team | GB% |
|---|---|---|
| Jaycob Deese | Pirates | 59.3% |
| Luis De Leon | Orioles | 56.7% |
| Jared Simpson | Nationals | 55.3% |
| Manuel Medina | Red Sox | 54.9% |
| David Davalillo | Rangers | 54.7% |
Other notable pitchers in the top-25 included new Rays prospect Anderson Brito (47.7%), Gary Gill Hill (49.3%), and now-Rockies prospect Griffin Herring (47.9%).
Check out more of our Minor League coverage.