Now that the baseball season is a few weeks deep, it's time to bring back the Minor League Prospect Watch. The first prospect I chose to highlight this year is Tampa Bay Rays OF Desmond Jennings. Jennings is a 6'2 185 pound outfielder who runs like the wind and is off to a hot start in Double-A at the age of just 22 years old.Jennings could be on he fast track to Tampa Bay sometime this season with his hot start. He is still young, so he hasn't shown much power yet, but this year he seems to be showing signs of a little more pop in his bat. As of right now, I would compare him as a right-handed Carl Crawford or Johnny Damon, but over time if he develops some power I could see him as more of a Carlos Beltran type of hitter. He has already been referred to as a "Carl Crawford type with power." Since the Rays don't have a full time right fielder as of right now, I could see them calling Jennings up to play RF as the season goes on. If Crawford or Upton get hurt, then he most certainly will get a call-up. He is also said to be a plus defender in centerfield. The one knock against him right now is if he can stay healthy after missing most of last season with a left shoulder injury and part of 2007 with a knee injury.
Here are Desmond Jennings' stats for the season to date:
.396 AVG/4 HR/24 RBI/.455 OBP/.610 SLG/1.065 OPS/14 SB
You can check out Desmond Jennings' career minor league stats on his Baseball Reference player page and his First Inning player page.
Here is where Desmond Jennings ranks among minor league prospects:
Ranking in ScoutingBook (5/22/2009): #66
Ranking in Baseball America 2009: #80
Ranking in Baseball Prospectus: #49
Ranking in MiLB.com 2009 Season Preview Unranked
Ranking from the Sporting News: Unranked
Ranking from ESPN: #25
Here is everything you need to know about Desmond Jennings:
After missing most of 2008 season due to left shoulder surgery, Jennings has announced his candidacy for our Minor League Player of the Year honors. He has the speed and athleticism to be a weapon in the field and on the basepaths, with 14 steals in 18 attempts and five triples. He has the plate discipline to take his walks and get a good pitch to hit, and the hand-eye coordination to find the ball with the barrel routinely. And he has enough power to punish pitchers when they put the ball over the plate. As long as he's on the field, there isn't much that Jennings—now batting .396/.455/.610 in 39 games—can't do. (Baseball America)
Rays outfield prospect Desmond Jennings went 3-for-4 Tuesday to raise his Double-A average to .400 on the season. He also hit his 14th double. The 22-year-old could be a candidate for a second-half call-up by the Rays, especially since they don't really have a long-term solution in right field right now. (CBS Sports)
Desmond Jennings’ potential is tantalizing. The Rays’ Double-A Montgomery center fielder has a combination of elite athleticism, speed, strike-zone discipline and feel for hitting that few prospects in the minor leagues can match. The 22-year-old’s early-season performance isn’t too shabby, either. Through 13 games, Jennings is batting .377/.431/.679, including four doubles, three triples, two homers and six steals in six attempts. Jennings went 5-for-6 with a triple on Saturday, then followed up the next day by going 3-for-3 with a triple and a home run. That makes yesterday’s 1-for-3 with a home run, a stolen base and a hit-by-pitch look modest by comparison. Jennings has an excellent approach at the plate, which has led to his walks being nearly equal to his strikeouts the last two years. He stays balanced at the plate and keeps his head locked in, then has the hand-eye coordination to regularly put the barrel of the bat to the ball. “Very good strike zone management,” Montgomery manager Billy Gardner Jr. said. “He doesn’t get fooled very often. He gets on a fastball good, he stays on the ball well and he uses the entire field to hit. He’s got some jump in his bat—the ball comes off his bat really well.” With all that Jennings has done early in the season, perhaps his most exciting play came at Chattanooga on April 15. With Dodgers lefthander Scott Elbert on the mound, Jennings took off and used his explosive speed to steal home. “He stole home plate, and I didn’t realize until I read some blogs the next day that it was Jackie Robinson Day,” Gardner said. “When you’re in the heat of the battle, you don’t think of that type of stuff. You just look at the opportunity that presents itself during the game. It was a situation where we had runners at first and third with two strikes on a lefthanded hitter against a lefthanded pitcher, so we felt like it was a good opportunity to steal a run here. The pitcher had a pretty slow movement with a high leg kick, and we set it up so that once he picked his leg up, if he threw over to go ahead and get a jump.” Beyond his value at the plate and on the basepaths, Jennings has the plus-plus speed to be a weapon on defense as well. “He covers a lot of ground out there,” Gardner said. “I haven’t seen him get into a bad route yet. His arm is accurate and he can play shallow center field and go back to the ball well. He’s the type of exciting guy who can beat you with the bat or he can beat you with the glove.” It’s not big news that Jennings can hit, run and field well. The major barometer for him this season won’t be a rate stat but a simple counting stat: games played. Jennings played only 24 games last year before having surgery on his left shoulder, one year after missing the final month of the 2007 season to have knee surgery. If he shows he can stay healthy for the entire season, he’ll be among the game’s elite handful of prospects. (Baseball America)
Should we start charging Jennings rent for being a regular tenant here on Hot Sheet? Phone lines are open. The guy just keeps on tearing through the Southern League, with his latest escapade starting last Friday with a five-hit game that included three runs scored and a double. And get this: He's hitting .468/.526/.596 (22-for-47) in May. (Baseball America)
Desmond Jennings' new position doesn't take away his biggest attribute. Playing in right field for the first time in his professional career didn't distract Jennings and suddenly make him a step slower. For evidence, see the winning run from the Biscuits' 6-5 victory over the Jacksonville Suns on Monday. Jennings scored on a two-out infield single in the bottom of the ninth inning -- from second base. "I had him going all the way," Biscuits manager Billy Gardner said. "The second baseman didn't pick it up well, had to react and make the throw, and D.J. is so quick. "It was a close play, but I thought he made it." Rashad Eldridge hit a hard groundball up the middle that second baseman Chris De La Cruz tried to backhand and didn't field cleanly. Jennings, who ran on contact, rolled around third and De La Cruz threw to catcher Brad Davis. Davis went for the tag and quickly argued with home-plate umpire Jason Cooksey after Cooksey's safe call. The Biscuits celebrated around them. "I kind of had a feeling he would try," Eldridge said. "The guy had to reach out for it and he bobbled it. With (Jennings') speed, I had a feeling that Billy would send him." Jennings also hit a three-run home run in the third inning and showed that right field isn't a place he despises. He had one putout and fielded three other balls, though he cracked that plays "don't come that way." "The only thing is you don't get any balls," Jennings said. "And, on every swing, every ball looked like it was coming right at me." Jennings is regularly a center fielder. The Biscuits will play him in right sporadically -- and in left -- to increase his major-league versatility. Gardner wouldn't say when Jennings would play right again or how much he'll play it this season. "I don't think there's any number," Gardner said. "It's at my discretion. There's no program for it, but I think we'll see him out there more than once a week."
Jennings had apparent trouble on two hits that came his way. In the seventh inning, Bryan Peterson tripled down the right-field line and Jennings had to fish the ball out of the corner. "I couldn't tell how it was going to play off the wall over there," Jennings said. "I didn't get it cleanly." (Montgomery Advertiser)
Is anybody going to stop Double-A Montgomery CF Desmond Jennings (Rays)? He hit .464/.469/607 (13-for-28) with two more doubles, another triple and six more RBIs since the calendar flipped to May. Overall, the 22-year-old is batting .377/.409/.605 with three home runs, seven doubles, five triples and 22 RBIs. And Montgomery still has 112 games to go. (Baseball America)
BA's Ben Badler featured Jennings in a Daily Dish on Thursday after the Rays' impressive outfielder enjoyed a tremendous weekend in which he delivered eight hits, five RBIs, tripled twice and also homered. Oh, and he also successfully stole home. If you happen to be traveling through southern Alabama this weeked or early next week, swing by the Biscuits' ballpark in Montgomery. They're in the middle of a 10-game homestand that ends on Wednesday night. (Baseball America)
Jennings missed two months with back trouble to start the year, then hurt his non-throwing shoulder while rehabbing the back. He tried to play through the shoulder injury, but lasted just 102 plate appearances in 2008 before surgery ended his regular season, although he came back to play on the Peoria Javelinas' taxi squad in the Arizona Fall League. The lost year of development hurts, but Jennings remains a top prospect due to his tool set and tremendous feel for the game. Jennings is a great athlete, a plus-plus runner who's well-built and has a compact stroke geared toward contact. He is strong enough and should be big enough to hit 20-25 homers a year (if not more), but his power hasn't shown up in games yet, and it's not likely to do so until he's 100 percent physically. He also has outstanding baseball instincts in the field, on the bases, and even at the plate, where he shows good pitch recognition. He gets a mulligan on his '08 stats because he was never fully healthy, and gets knocked down a peg here because of the potential for recurrent back trouble down the road, but he still has star potential as a center fielder who can hit and adds value on the bases. (Keith Law's Top 100 Prospects)
While Jennings provides supreme athleticism, a strong knowledge of the strike zone and a ability both at the plate and in the field, injuries have been his Achilles’ heel as a pro. In addition to his back and shoulder injuries this season, Jennings last year had arthroscopic surgery to repair the lateral meniscus in his knee, ending his season in mid-August. Jennings ranked as the No. 6 prospect in the Rays system and the No. 59 prospect in all of baseball entering the year, although his inability to stay healthy has dinged his stock. (Baseball America)
Seen for a time as a raw talent that hadn't shown the polish or discipline to be mentioned along with other leading outfield prospects, Tampa outfielder Desmond Jennings is still lurking in the wings. A multi-sport high school player, the big, strong and fast Jennings (45 steals in 2007) was seen by many as the second coming of Carl Crawford, in a good way. But his 2008 season was a train-wreck, derailed by back, shoulder and knee injuries that limited him to 24 games. It might have been for the best, as he was hitting 50 points below his previous year when he was finally shut down for the season. In 2009, he'll need to show that he's both fully recovered and ready for the next level if he's going to move up the charts in Tampa. (Scouting Book)
Desmond Jennings had a breakout season in 2007 only to miss most of last year due to injury. The outfielder hit .259/.360/.412 in just 85 High-A at-bats, but he is expected to be 100% healthy in 2009 when he repeats the level. The outfield depth in Tampa Bay is not nearly as deep as it once was, so the athletic Jennings could make an impact in the Majors as soon as 2010. (Fan Graphs)
Can Desmond Jennings stay healthy? A healthy Jennings was tearing up A-ball in 2007, conjuring up images of a right-handed Carl Crawford. Since then, however, injuries have brought his career to somewhat of a halt. Shoulder surgery cut Jennings’ 2008 season short after just 24 games. He only played 99 games in 2007. It’s been very frustrating for both Jennings and the Rays because in his limited time on the field, the speedy leftfielder has displayed some mouth-watering skills. Jennings' 2007 numbers were impressive for Class A Columbus (GA) in the South Atlantic League. He hit .315 with nine homers and 37 RBI while finishing with 45 steals and a .401 on-base percentage. Desmond’s 2007 campaign was good enough to get him onto Baseball America’s prestigious top 100 prospect list heading into 2008. Some scouts actually had him rated higher than David Price. Jennings was promoted to high-A Vero Beach in the Florida State League for the 2008 season. Jennings missed some games early on with nagging injuries, but eventually got into 24 games and hit .259 before shoulder problems forced him into the season-ending surgery. Apparently, the 22 year old is making good progress recovering from surgery because the Rays elected to send him to the Arizona Fall League. At this point, any time Jennings can spend on the field is huge. So far, Jennings is hitting .241 with a homer and four RBI in 29 at-bats for the Javelinas. For a young prospect with the combination of big-time talent and injury concerns, the future is difficult to predict. The Rays would absolutely love it if Jennings can put together a healthy 2009. That would give them the option of trading him for great value at some point in the future, or possibly moving Carl Crawford (I know, it is sacrilege to even speak of it) to make a spot for Jennings. Remember this is all speculation, and there have already been some murmurs that the Rays could trade Crawford. The Rays have a club option on Crawford for 2010 that could pay him as much as $11.25 million and if Crawford is still worth that in 2010, then it is almost a certainty that the Rays won’t be able to afford him once he hits free agency in the 2010 off-season. Anyways, the Crawford decision is likely a long way off and hopefully Jennings can play well enough in 2009 to give the Rays some options. Just another young outfielder with a ton of speed in the Rays’ system. (Tampa Bay Rays Examiner)
Jennings, 22, burst onto the scene with a breakout campaign in the South Atlantic League in 2007. He batted .315/.387/.465, with a 10.4 BB% rate, .852 OPS and 45 steals to help lead the Columbus Catfish to the Sally League championship. Injuries prevented Jennings from building on that performance in 2008, however. He was left behind in extended spring training with back issues, costing him the first two months. He then reported to High-A Vero Beach in June, but a shoulder injury cut short his season after just 24 games. While he has yet to remain on the field for a full season, he arguably has the highest upside of any position player in the Rays’ system. Jennings, a former football recruit at the University of Alabama, is one of the best pure athletes in the organization as well. He also has an advanced approach and his improved his routes to the ball in center field. For these reasons, he has often been referred to as a “Carl Crawford-type, but with more power.” While he may never hit for the power that many scouts expect, there is no denying his talent. Baseball America has him penciled in as the Rays’ starting center fielder in a projected 2012 lineup, which seems likely. Injuries aside, he is young enough to keep his status as a top-five prospect in the organization. (Scout.com)
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