Cleveland Baseball Insider

Cleveland Baseball Insider's 2024 Season Top 50 Prospects: No. 46 INF Yaikel Mijares

Mijares hit three grand slams and was named to the Dominican Summer League All-Star team in his first professional season with the Guardians

Todd Paquette

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As we prepare for a new year and spring training to begin, there’s no better time to bring you an up-to-date look at Cleveland Baseball Insiders' top 50 prospects.

Rankings are based off seeing the players live, watching video and having conversations with evaluators within and outside of the organization, as well as other writers. While prospect lists are fun and entertaining for fans, they are not an end-all-be-all in terms of who make it eventually to the major leagues. Remember, Jose Ramirez was never a top-100 prospect nationally and players like Steven Kwan and Will Brennan weren't considered top-20 prospects in the Guardians organization by many outside publications.

The ultimate goal here is to inform our readers and give you information on some of the young talent in the organization that they can follow and look forward to seeing in the future at the MLB level.

Yaikel Mijares - Infielder

AGE - 17

BATS - S

DOB - 12/13/2005

THROWS - R

HT - 5'9"

SIGNED - 1/15/2023

WT - 145

ETA - 2028

Mijares signed for $275K out of Caracas, Venezuela as part of the Guardians 2023 international signing class on January 15th, 2023. He made his professional debut in the Dominican Summer League in 2023.

Scouting Grades

Hit - 45

Arm - 50

Power - 40

Field - 50

Run - 50

Overall - 40

The athletic Mijares has an average to above average arm as well as speed. He can handle shortstop and third base but may grade out best second base for the future. 

Yaikel despite his size shows pretty impressive power that consistently is able to barrel up the baseball making hard contact to all fields. His power production may even increase as he matures and gets stronger. He showed a good eye at the plate in his first season showing the ability to work a walk.

He has a bit of swing and miss to his game and struck out 21.9% which is not terrible but needs to be monitored as he sees more advanced pitching moving forward.

2023 Stats

G

AB

R

H

2B

3B

HR

RBI

BB

SO

SB

AVG

OBP

SLG

ISO

OPS

wRC+

41

146

41

37

 5

 5

 4

 30

27

39

15

.253

.388

.438

.185

.826

  123

Mijares came out of the gates hot in his first pro-season doing most of his damage over his first 25 games. In those 25 games he triple slashed .303/.441/.528 posting a .970 OPS while collecting 10 extra base hits. Four of those extra base hits went for home runs three of which were grand slams! Along with the power display he stole 10 bases and drew 19 walks and drove in 25 runs.

His offensive output did slow down over his final 16 games of the season but still finished putting up outstanding numbers over his 41 games played. Mijares finished with a .253 AVG, .388 OBP and a 123 wRC+ over his 178 plate appearances. He drove in 30 runs on 14 extra base hits while swiping 15 bases. Mijares scored 41 runs drawing 27 walks good for a 15.2% walk rate.

Mijares started 18 games at second base, eight at shortstop, seven at third base and six as the designated hitter.

2024 and Future Outlook

Look for Mijares to make the jump to the states and start his 2024 campaign in the Arizona Complex League. It will be interesting to see if he continues to show the impressive pop he displayed in the Dominican Summer League. 

A solid defender that can handle second, third and shortstop positions it will ultimately be the development of his bat as he advances through the farm system that will decide his future at the big-league level.

With a possible dynamic combo of power and speed if Mijares can keep his strikeout rate down and walk rate above average he has a projectable ceiling of a starter at the MLB level. His floor could still be that of a versatile switch-hitting middle infield utility player.

Published
Todd Paquette
TODD PAQUETTE

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