Estevan Florial Stats & Scouting Report College Baseball, MLB Draft, Prospects

BA Grade/Risk: 45/Medium

Track Record: From an identification issue that complicated his initial signing, to his rise through the system and ascent to its No. 1 prospect in 2019, to two years marred by injuries before his big league debut during the pandemic season of 2020, Florial's career has gone through more peaks and valleys than most. He's been healthy the last two seasons and has made up for lost time and development while getting sporadic callups in the past three seasons to supplement the big league roster. He appeared in 17 games in 2022, just nine of them starts.

Scouting Report: The biggest problem in Florial's game has long revolved around the frequency at which he swings and misses at pitches in the strike zone. He reduced that total to 25% in 2022, while similarly dropping his chase rate to 21%. Both those figures are improvements of 4% year over year. The result is more contact--often hard contact. More than half of the balls Florial hit in 2022 resulted in exit velocities of 95 mph or better, and his 90th percentile exit velocity of 107.2 mph was among the best in the entire system. While the Yankees are encouraged by Florial's improvement, they believe there is still more to come. He also needs to improve his output against lefthanded pitchers, against whom he hit just .222 in the minors. He sharpened his left-on-left skills by taking rounds of batting practice against Scranton coach Raul Dominguez, who is lefthanded. Florial is arguably the best defender in the system, earning plus grades for his work in center field as well as his throwing arm. He's an above-average runner.

The Future: Despite his long career in the minor leagues, Florial is still relatively young in terms of on-field reps. The 2022 season was the first time since 2017 that he played more than 100 games.

Scouting Grades: Hitting: 40. Power: 55. Speed: 55. Fielding: 60. Arm: 60.

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