IS he really not among our top 30 prospects? I don't see him on the index.
At any rate, in going through Dave Syzmb.... ZiPS projections and write up for the team on the source that Elvir hates, there's an awful lot of love for him (
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2023-zips-projections-washington-nationals/):
ZiPS still sees CJ Abrams as risky and is just about out of hope for Carter Kieboom. There’s a bright spot in the form of Jake Alu, who destroyed pitchers in the high minors, even when you take the 2022 helium out of those numbers in the form of a translation. ZiPS doesn’t see him being a near-star offensive player, but the probabilistic measure I use had him as one of the best defensive minor league players; he’s listed as +5 runs at third base, and if ZiPS had been as confident about the translated defense estimate as it is about MLB defensive measures, the projection would actually be +12. Meneses gets a better projection than similar veteran surprise Frank Schwindel got after 2021, and ZiPS sees Alex Call as a legitimate stopgap corner outfielder of the Anthony Santander variety. Abrams, along with Keibert Ruiz and Luis García, has significant upside, and it wouldn’t take much to see any of these projections blow up in a positive way with some real steps forwards from these youngsters.
If anyone has a BP projection, I'd be curious what they say. Alu seems to be a guy scouts may like less than more number focused analytics would. I haven't seen that sort of split since the late 00's. FG had him #16 before the draft and the Soto trade, so figure they'll have him not much worse than #20-23 at least after Green, Bennett, Hassell, Wood, and Susana less any graduations.
