In 10 words or fewer: Collegiate catcher may be a great defender and hitter.
Position: C | Age (2016): 22
Bats: R | Throws: R
Height: 6’1″ | Weight: 180
2015 Rank: N/A
OFFENSE
Contact – A. Ward just did not strike out this past season, at least not in the way you’d expect someone that came pre-labeled with “offensive questions” attached to his name on draft day. The barrel of his bat spends a ton of time in the zone and should allow Taylor to square up the right pitches.
Power – B. Ward is a strong kid with very good bat speed. He doesn’t have the necessary uppercut motion to be a homerun hitter, but he does have the strong hips and wrists that will allow him to turn on a pitch and drive it out to LF with authority.
Discipline – A. A lot of good collegiate hitters come up to the Pioneer League and post as many walks as strikeouts. There are good college hitters succeeding in the Pioneer League, and then there’s Taylor Ward. This kid walked 29 times in 32 games, which is an absolutely unreal pace. Only one of those was intentional, so it wasn’t padded. He also only struck out 8 times. You read that right, 8 times. That’s almost four times as many walks as strikeouts. Ward just doesn’t get fooled often, and when he is, he finds a way to lay off or will still foul it off. Just an incredible showing so far.
Speed – B. Ward is a very athletic catcher and had no problem running the bases like a corner outfielder would.
DEFENSE
Arm – A+. I must be going soft. This is my fifth year of doing these prospect reports. In the first four years, I put an A+ on the tools of only two players: Mike Trout’s speed and range, and Kaleb Cowart’s arm. This year, I’ve given an A+ to three players: Kaleb Cowart’s arm again, Ji-Man Choi’s plate discipline, and Taylor Ward’s arm. Coming into the draft, reports indicated his arm ranged between good and “the best I’ve ever seen”. After watching him this year, it’s the best I’ve seen from a minor league catcher. It’s even better than Carlos Perez and Jett Bandy, who both have outstanding arms. I’m not sure if it’s as good as Pudge Rodriguez when he was younger, but it’s really really good. Like he’ll throw out average speed base stealers by 2-3 steps.
Fielding – B. Taylor had a little bit of trouble with passed balls in A-Ball this year, which is part his fault but also part the pitchers fault on two of them. This was surprising as most reports coming from college indicated that Taylor would be a very good defender in the majors. It may just be a fluke though. We’ll see heading into this next season.
Range – A. Ward supposedly moves around behind the dish as well as any catcher in the draft or even in the minors right now, which should give you a good idea about how good of a catcher he is.
OVERALL
Performance – A. It’s hard to imagine a performance going much better than Ward’s did in his first taste of professional ball. He hit .349 in the hitter friendly Pioneer League. But the Midwest League is pitcher friendly, and as a result, we saw Ward’s batting average dip all the down to .348. I’m being facetious of course, but I think you get the idea that low minors just have not presented Ward with much of a challenge so far. The combined .457 OBP perfectly illustrates this.
Projection – B+. This really just depends on who you ask. Judging by the Angels entire staff leaving their chairs and going nuts in the draft room as soon as their pick came up, if you asked them I’d bet they’d tell you he projects to be a great major league catcher. If you ask the majority of pundits who had never heard of Taylor Ward and don’t care for West Coast colleges, they’d probably tell you Ward figures to be a light-hitting, defense-first, platoon or backup catcher in the major leagues. If you ask me, well I’ll be boring and take the middle ground here. Ward is going to be a great defensive catcher in the major leagues. His bat won’t struggle as much as many thought it would, but it also won’t be as good as it was in his final season at Fresno state, or in his first taste of professional ball. My guess is he’ll bat will be solid for a starting catcher.
What to expect in 2016 – The Angels are pretty solid on catching depth with the young defensive minded Perez and veteran presence of Soto in the majors. They also have one of the better catching prospects in AAA in Jett Bandy and a couple decent ones in AA. So I expect the Angels will take their time with Ward. He’s probably ready for AA this year, but I’m guessing the Angels will send Ward to the Cal League just to start things off. He might get a month or so in AA toward the middle or end of the season, but to start, I expect to see him in San Bernardino. I think his offensive numbers should look pretty nice in his home state and playing in the hitter friendly Cal League.
Most Likely Scenario – Ward climbs the ladder and becomes the Angels first “starting” catcher since Iannetta and Molina before him. Scioscia prefers to keep his catchers fresh by giving them frequent rest, but I think Ward is going to be too good to keep out of the lineup for long.
Grade as a Prospect – B. If Ward puts up another good season like this last year, we might have to bump this up to the A range, and they may be forced to start considering putting Ward on the Top 100 lists. I get that scouts weren’t that impressed with him in college (except the Angels), and that he was projected to be a 2nd or a 3rd round selection, but it didn’t turn out that way and right now the Angels are looking like the smart ones in this scenario. You could make an argument that he should be on the Top 100 prospect list right now.
Estimated Time of Arrival – 2018. Ward should only need two years in the minors to start banging on that major league door. He should be in the big leagues in time to start his age 24 season.
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