All Things Considered, Josiah Hartshorn Might Be Best Hitter in Minors Right Now
If Josiah Hartshorn keeps this up, he’s going to earn himself another promotion before the season is up. Heck, he might be bucking for a trip to Knoxville by the end of the first half. He just turned 19 in February and this is his first taste of professional baseball, but he’s shown zero lag in production since being promoted from Low-A Myrtle Beach to High-A South Bend. In fact, he’s been better by orders of magnitude at the higher level.
The switch-hitting teenager earned the largest bonus ever by a sixth-round pick because the Cubs believed in the bat and needed to buy him out of his commitment to Texas A&M. Their faith in the preacher’s son from Southern California was justified immediately at Low-A, where he slashed .273/.424/.460 with a 149 wRC+ and five homers and 25 RBI in 177 plate appearances. But his numbers have been absurd in less than a month at High-A.
Through his first 78 plate appearances with South Bend, Hartshorn is batting .422/.474/.859 with eight homers and 28 RBI. He’s walking a little less and striking out a little more than he did in South Carolina, but we’re still talking about very strong marks in those categories. What’s more, the elite power production more than makes up for a few whiffs here and there. Hartshorn’s 168 wRC+ across both levels is good for 21st in all of the minors, but six of those ahead of him compiled at least some of their stats in the Complex League.
Of the players above him on the list, none of the 15 who’ve generated better results at A-ball and above are under 22 years old. And only two of those are that young, so we’re talking about an average age just shy of 24 for that group. For those who are reading this while holding their phone and thus can’t use their fingers to count, that means Hartshorn is nearly five years younger than his offensive peers.
While we should temper things a little with the knowledge that some of those results are being compiled at higher levels, it’s also important to note that they should be better with that much more experience. I mean, 28-year-old JJ Bleday had better be hitting well in the minors. Same for 27-year-old Niko Kavadas. We could also throw 25-year-old catcher Owen Ayers in that group, but we don’t want to be throwing shade on another Cubs prospect.
Ayers’ age means he’s not getting nearly the same hype as his younger counterpart, but the backstop out of Marshall has put up very strong hitting numbers over the last two seasons. He has a .332/.442/.689 slash with 17 homers and 50 RBI across 231 PAs between South Bend and Knoxville, so it’s very likely we’ll see Ayers and Hartshorn providing a powerful 1-2 punch in the middle of the Smokies’ order before long.
Even though the Cubs don’t tend to be super aggressive with their promotions, I would not be at all surprised to see Hartshorn finish out the season at Double-A before opening next season at Triple-A Iowa. If we presume the organization is willing to trade Kevin Alcantara or let him walk after this season, there will be an outfield opening for the youngster. I can’t claim credit for this comp because I saw it on social media over the weekend, but Hartshorn could be on a track similar to that of the Pirates’ Konnor Griffin.
The only difference is that Hartshorn has displayed more power and a better plate approach while playing less premium defensive positions. He obviously needs to keep it up for more than just a few weeks, but there’s nothing about his game that suggests this is a fluke. When things do settle down a bit, we’re still talking about a potentially elite offensive talent who could force his way through the minors faster than most.
At the very least, he’s going to make for a really fun follow moving forward.
