Weekly Risers: Tony Blanco Jr. Hits Four More, Rincon Keeps Drawing Walks at Double-A
By Morgan Davis ·
The Weekly Risers column highlights the weekly performances of players outside of our Top 400. We strive to provide context to the performance so you can assess who is on a hot run and who has shifted their projection.
Tony Blanco Jr. is up to 23 Homers and Needs Another Challenge
Tony Blanco Jr. went 8-for-21 at High-A Greensboro last week with four home runs, seven RBI, three walks, and only four strikeouts, a contact rate that ran against the grain of everything that makes evaluators nervous about his profile. The 21-year-old right fielder has a 40 hit grade and a 65 raw power grade, and the honest scouting framing is bench first baseman. The 2026 performance is something harder to dismiss: 23 home runs, a .606 slugging percentage, and 54 RBI across 305 combined plate appearances in A-ball and High-A, with a 10.5 percent walk rate holding his on-base percentage near .350.
Over the last 30 days, Blanco is slashing .333/.436/.864 with 10 home runs and 17 RBI in 78 plate appearances, a stretch that has featured contact rates closer to his underlying competitiveness than to the swing-and-miss ceiling his long path usually presents. The strikeout rate over that window sits at 25.6 percent, still elevated but well short of the 28.5 percent he carries on the season. His swing rate of 49.8 percent over the last 30 days is in the aggressive range, which typically signals contact risk, but the contact percentage has held up because he is getting to pitches he can punish rather than expanding into trouble. The power grade was never the question for this Pirates prospect, and when the barrel works it works loudly: back-to-back two-homer days on Saturday/Sunday, showed he can cover multiple zones. A bench projection at first base still fits the defensive profile. But 23 home runs in High-A before his 22nd birthday earns a longer look than the 558th ranking suggests, and the gap between where this season sits and where that number does is increasingly difficult to explain away.
Quick Hits
Bryan Rincon, SS, Phillies (AA, Reading) · #701 · Went 12-for-31 with two home runs, four doubles, four RBI, and three walks against five strikeouts. The week was the clearest illustration yet of what the 22-year-old switch-hitter has been doing all season at Double-A: a 39.1 percent swing rate, 76.6 percent contact rate, and a .402 on-base percentage across 460 plate appearances. Over the last 30 days he is slashing .318/.455/.591 with five home runs and a 20.0 percent walk rate in 110 plate appearances, while his swing rate has dropped further to 37.7 percent. The graded carrying tools are his glove (60) and arm (60), with a 45 hit and 45 power framing that makes the in-game production a consistent surprise. A shortstop with this plate discipline and a .501 slugging percentage over the last month is making the utility projection feel conservative.
Sean Keys, 3B, Blue Jays (AAA, Buffalo) · #486 · Nine hits, two home runs, a triple, two doubles, and nine RBI in 23 plate appearances. The three-base hit was a nice wrinkle for a profile that does not depend on it: Keys carries 40 speed and his carrying tool is the bat, where he grades 50 hit and 55 power. His Triple-A line of .301/.419/.626 with 13 home runs in 198 plate appearances is the part of the profile doing the heavy lifting. Combined across Double-A and Triple-A, he has 28 home runs, 57 walks, and only 103 strikeouts in 444 plate appearances. The last 30 days in Buffalo read .333/.450/.611 with six homers. Toronto has already given him a brief look in the majors this year; the minor league case for another shot is building every week.
Carlos Virahonda, C, Diamondbacks (A+, Hillsboro) · #829 · Eight hits, one home run, two doubles, and six RBI in 20 plate appearances, with two walks and three strikeouts. The 20-year-old catcher's contact rate has been the best news of the week: 78.7 percent on the season, and over the last 30 days at High-A he is slashing .377/.500/.590 with 10 walks and only 10 strikeouts in 79 plate appearances. Combined across Low-A and High-A, he has 18 home runs, 86 RBI, and a .517 slugging percentage in 392 plate appearances. He grades as an average bat and average power at catcher, which is a meaningful profile, and this production has been significantly outpacing it. Fringe catching prospects rarely slash .500 over a 30-day stretch; this one is.
Sterlin Thompson, OF, Rockies (AAA, Albuquerque) · #467 · Six hits, two home runs, a double, five RBI, and six walks against four strikeouts in 22 plate appearances. The walk total was the story: six free passes in a week from a left fielder with a 50 hit grade and an everyday projection, reinforcing the .465 Triple-A on-base percentage he carries on the season. Over the last nine games at Albuquerque, Thompson is slashing .429/.600/.929 with three home runs and an 11-walk stretch that has pushed his 30-day BB% to 27.5 percent. Thompson already has 27 games of MLB experience this year and has produced at Triple-A all season at a .319/.465/.504 clip. The power grades at 45, but it keeps showing up in games.
Reinold Navarro, LHP, Pirates (A+, Greensboro) · #991 · Struck out eight across 4.2 innings of one-run ball, allowing one hit and one walk while generating 17 whiffs on 68 pitches in his High-A debut. The 19-year-old left-hander carries a 65 fastball that has touched 99, paired with a 60 slider, and the whiff rate backs up both: a 43.2 percent mark on the season. The full-season body of work at Low-A Bradenton showed a 2.60 ERA with 117 strikeouts in 69.1 innings, and the command (35 grade) remains the live wire, with a 20.1 percent walk rate for the year. But 17 whiffs in fewer than five innings at a higher level is a jump-off-the-page number. The floor here is a late-inning reliever; the ceiling depends entirely on what happens with the strike-throwing.
Hunter Owen, LHP, Royals (AA, Springdale) · #974 · LHP, Royals (AA, Northwest Arkansas) · #974 — Struck out eight across 6.2 scoreless innings, allowing three hits and two walks while generating 14 whiffs. It was the continuation of the best stretch of his season: over the last 30 days at Double-A he has posted a 2.55 ERA with 41 strikeouts in 24.2 innings, a 37.6 percent K rate and a 34.6 percent whiff rate. The season ERA of 6.45 and 1.65 WHIP makes this look like a different pitcher than the one who showed up in April, and the last month's 51.2 percent strike rate is a meaningful uptick from his season average. He projects as a long reliever with up-down utility, and the stuff is average across the board, but a left-hander who is this sharp right now is worth tracking into the offseason.
Cam Cauley, SS, Rangers (AAA, Round Rock) · #453 · Eleven hits, four home runs, three doubles, and 10 RBI in 32 plate appearances, drawing four walks against six strikeouts. It was one of the better weeks for any infielder in the Pacific Coast League. The 23-year-old carries a 40 power grade, so four home runs in a week will not survive contact with the projection, but the season context adds weight: 12 home runs at Triple-A in 380 plate appearances with a 12.9 percent walk rate. Cauley has 34 stolen bases combined, a 65 speed grade, and now an .820 OPS at the level. Texas already gave him 28 MLB games this year; the Triple-A résumé keeps getting harder to ignore.
Garrett Baumann, RHP, Braves (AAA, Lawrenceville) · #576 · Seven innings, three hits, one earned run, two walks, and seven strikeouts with 18 whiffs on 96 pitches. The efficiency number stands out: 13.7 pitches per inning, well below the 18-plus threshold that typically signals a problematic outing. Baumann's season has been bifurcated, with a brutal Triple-A stint driving the numbers, but over the last 30 days at Double-A he has a 3.68 ERA with a 28.6 percent K rate and a 0.95 WHIP across 22 innings. He grades as a 55 fastball from a tall frame with a usable changeup, and the Double-A track record is a 4.26 ERA across 76 innings. The back-end starter projection looks reasonable again after a week like this.
Kelvis Salcedo, RHP, Tigers (A, Lakeland) · #851 · Allowed one hit over 4.2 scoreless innings, walking no one and striking out six while generating nine whiffs on 68 pitches. The 20-year-old right-hander has a 55 four-seamer sitting 95-97, a 55 cutter, and a 55 slider, and the last 30 days at Lakeland show a 3.46 ERA with an 18 K and only 3 BB in 13 innings. The season K rate sits at 35.0 percent. Command grades at 50, which is a step ahead of most of the pitchers generating these whiff numbers at this age. A mid-rotation projection with closing-speed stuff in the low-A environment; the test will come when he gets stretched out further.