Jesse Winker has been named on of MLB Pipeline’s Top 10 outfield prospects for the 2016 season.
The list is full of elite level prospects, which isn’t surprising given that this list is made up of all outfielders and not limited to just one specific position in the outfield. Winker was named as the 10th best outfield prospect in the game.
Here is what writer Jonathan Mayo had to say about Winker in the article:
Winker was staring at a .248/.352/.349 line at the end of the first half of his 2015 season. Instead of trying to do too much to get out of it, he stuck to his game plan and hit .316/.426/.516 in the second half. That’s a much better representation of what Winker will be able to do at the highest level. There’s no real roadblock in left field for Cincy, with Winker likely to be ready at some point in the near future.
The first half was certainly a struggle for Winker. When I talked with him while in Pensacola later in the season he noted that pitch selection was a part of his issue early on in the season. Things turned around for him, and choosing better pitches certainly led to his production turning around in a big way.
As I wrote back in July, his struggle early in the season was a result of his batted ball tendencies. In the first two months of the year he was hitting groundballs 63% of the time, which is an incredibly high rate. For his career he had always been in the 40-45% range with grounders, which is right on target for a player who has some power. From June 1st through the end of the season he posted a 43% groundball rate and saw his numbers go back to where you would expect them to be. As the write up by Mayo notes, his second half numbers are a lot more likely to be the kind to expect from him at the next level than the ones he posted in the first half, or even the ones he posted for the entire season that were held down by the slow start.