Young Captains ready to set sail in Eastlake

Bo Naylor

Bo knows ! ! ! Well at least we hope he does. Bo Naylor was the Indians #1 pick in the 2018 baseball draft as a catcher out of Mississauga,ON, Canada. We hope he knows he’s expected to make Tribe fans forget about Yan Gomes as well as Roberto Perez and Casey Plewacki. Naylor will start the season playing Single A baseball for the Lake County Captains in the Midwest League.

Naylor will lead an interesting group of prospects as Cleveland will look to build up their talent pool for the future. Bo batted .274 with 2 HR and 17 RBI in 33 games and 117 AB’s in the Arizona League.

He will be joined by Josh Rolette at the catching position who spent the majority of 2018 with the Captains. Around the infield we’ll be getting a look at Ulysses Cantu, Jesse Berardi, Jose Fermin, Tyler Freeman and Marcos Gonzalez.

Cantu is 5’11” and 220 lbs and won’t turn 21 until May 1. He was a round 6 pick by Cleveland in 2016 and has progressed from Arizona to Mahoning Valley and to Lake County last year. He shows some power promise as he had 8 HR’s last season. Cantu will have to cut down on his strikeouts and make some more contact to advance.

Freeman will also be a name to watch for since last year at Mahoning Valley in 270 AB’s he batted .352 with 38 RBI and 14 Steals. Tyler was a Baseball America Short-Season All-Star in 2018. Marcos Gonzalez will also play the infield for the Captains. He batted .305 in the Arizona Rookie League in 2018.

The outfield will be lead by Will Benson who was Cleveland’s 1st round pick in the 2016 draft. Will lead the Captains last year with 22 HR’s along with 58 RBI. Hitting the ball a long way has never been a problem for Benson. Hitting it often is still a concern however Will is just turning 21 in June.
Benson will be joined by Mitch Reeves, Hosea Nelson, Quentin Holmes and Ruben Cardenas patrolling the outfield. Nelson played for Mahoning Valley the last two years. In 2018 he batted .233 but had 8 HR’s and 36 RBI’s.

On the hill for the Captains is a familiar name in Brady Aiken. Brady was drafted #1 by the Tribe in 2015 but has been plagued by injuries for most of his short minor league career. He was sidelined all of last year and didn’t appear in a game in the Cleveland system. There are high hopes that he can rebound from his 5-13 2017 season with Lake County.
Joining him will be Zack Draper who was 7-4 at Mahoning Valley last year.
Also look for Eli Lingos, Shane McCarthy, Juan Mota, Luis Oviedo, Aaron Pinto, Thomas Ponticelli and Alex Royalty.
Ponticelli had 31 K’s in 24 innings for Arizona last year in mostly a relief role but did start 2 games for them.
Oviedo could be one to watch as he started 11 games for Mahoning Valley and Lake County combined with a 2.05 ERA and 67 K’s in 57 innings.

Looking forward to seeing what these young players can do and how long they stay at the lower A level. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing some of them in the next couple of years at Progressive Field.

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