Niko Kavadas climbed a number of ranges in his first full skilled season. Furthermore, he was top-of-the-line hitters within the minors. Drafted within the eleventh spherical final 12 months by the Boston Pink Sox out of the College of Notre Dame, the 6-foot-1, 230-pound first baseman slashed .280/.442/.547 with 26 house runs, these numbers coming between Low-A Salem, Excessive-A Greenville, and Double-A Portland. His 170 wRC+ ranked third highest amongst MLB farmhands who logged at the least 300 plate appearances.
I not too long ago requested Portland Sea Canines growth coach Katie Krall what makes Boston’s 2022 Minor League Participant of the Yr nearly as good as he’s.
“Niko understands his thumbprint as a hitter,” she stated of Kavadas, who got here to the plate 515 instances and augmented his 110 hits with 102 walks. “He is aware of the place he does injury. He’s bought a disciplined method when it comes to the varieties of pitches he’s seeking to hit and doesn’t chase lots. For those who have a look at his warmth map, he does most of his injury belt to under, so a message we’ve tried to hammer house with him is to deal with that. He’s actually purchased into it. Even right here in Double-A, the place he hasn’t had the identical outcomes that he did in Greenville, the underlying processes are trending in the appropriate path.”
Pink Sox director of participant growth Brian Abraham supplied an analogous evaluation. Citing Kavadas’ mixture of energy and plate self-discipline, he expressed that the left-handed hitter is exclusive in that he “nearly has a contact method that produces energy.”
Requested if he may present a comp for Kavadas, Abraham chewed on the query earlier than answering: “Perhaps Luke Voit?”
Krall, in the meantime, supplied an eyebrow-raising comp.
“For those who have a look at his base, he’s truly similar to Albert Pujols,” she instructed me. “It’s actually quiet. He’s bought a powerful basis. He’s strong, he isn’t fidgety, and that enables him to remain inside himself. That’s most likely the place the comp ends — we’re speaking a couple of Corridor of Famer — however should you watch him within the field, the best way that he bends, the best way that he holds himself, his posture, even his bat path. That’s somebody our hitting coaches and I’ve recognized. For those who shut your eyes, and if Niko [were] somewhat bit larger, you possibly can see Albert hitting.”
Whereas he was initially hesitant to confess it, Kavadas stated the Pujols comparability is one which he’s heard. Once more, it’s primarily based on what he seems to be like within the field, and never, regardless of a future that appears promising, his probabilities of sooner or later becoming a member of baseball’s latest 700-home-run hitter in Cooperstown.
“He and I are very nonetheless and quiet early on, after which there’s somewhat little bit of a leg elevate as a timing mechanism,” Kavadas defined. “He’s somewhat extra direct to the ball than I’m — that’s one thing I’m engaged on — and he’s clearly right-handed whereas I’m left-handed. The comps I’ve heard most frequently are Max Muncy and Kyle Schwarber. Particularly with Schwarber, it could be the persistence on the plate after which once you do determine to let the swing go, you actually let it go. That’s a technique he and I are related.”
The power to hit baseballs lengthy distances is one other similarity. Kavadas hit a 430-foot-plus moonshot in Sport One of many Japanese League playoffs final week, and he reportedly greater than matched that distance a number of instances at Notre Dame. He additionally reached base at a powerful clip. In his remaining collegiate season, he paired 22 house runs in 220 plate appearances with a .473 OBP. That he didn’t go increased within the draft put a chip on his shoulder.
“There was a whole lot of frustration that got here with that course of,” stated Kavadas, who heard 315 names referred to as earlier than his personal. “I felt like I had confirmed sufficient to go previous to the eleventh spherical. I used to be nonetheless sitting there on the finish of the tenth spherical, and going to mattress that night I instructed myself that I wasn’t going to let it deter me. I do know that I can swing it, and I do know I can swing it on the highest stage. So the spherical, whether or not it was the eleventh or the third, wasn’t going to matter. I made a decision that I used to be going to come back out right here and present the whole nation that I can swing the bat.”
