Arizona Fall League Thread

[jay87shot]

It's really nice seeing Bitonti coming around after the rough AA stretch and rough 1st 5 or 6 AFL games. Do we think Payne sitting 3 games is an small injury? 

On 10/20/2026 at 9:40 AM, nate82 said:

From the scouts I have talked to they really like Payne but it comes with a caveat.  He has to cut down on the strikeouts.  They said he is an everyday CF and should produce 25 HR’s a season but with low average.  If he can cut his K% to around 25% that would be ideal.

They think he added about 20 pounds since he was drafted and it shows in his power numbers.  One scout graded him as a 60 defensively in CF and 70 in power.  Hitting wise they have him at a 50 because of the strikeouts.  This is all at a 50-80 rating scale.  Other scouts I talked to didn’t want to give out rating scales as they have only seen him in the AFL.  The one scout has seen him a lot in the minors. 

Payne reminds me a lot of Curtis Granderson that both of them had/have some weird imbalance in there swing. Obviously that would be a best case situation for Payne in all likelihood but I think there is still a way for him to be a .270-.280 hitter in the bigs even if he strikeout 150+ times a year. I think it is easy to forget he played most of the year at 19. I would expect the team to slow his rise down a bit with Chourio, Mitchell, Lara (Sal) and the Josh A. ahead of him. For me he has 2 years until he needs to be ready unless we trade Mitchell next offseason with 1 year of control left.