Cleveland Baseball Insider

Guardians Top Prospects Valera And Noel To Participate in The MLB Futures Game

George Valera and Jhonkensy Noel have been selected to represent the Cleveland Guardians at MLB Futures Game.

Todd Paquette

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Cleveland Guardians top young power hitting prospects George Valera and Jhonkensy Noel have been selected to play in the MLB Futures game at Dodgers stadium during the All-Star break.

Both players were signed as International free agents back in 2017 out of the Dominican Republic in which might turn out to be a legendary signing class. Other Guardians prospects from that same year include Brayan Rocchio, Jose Tena and Alexfri Planez.

The 21-year-old Valera has spent the entire 2022 season playing for Double-A Akron and after a bit of a slow start has been tearing up the Eastern League enjoying a terrific season.

Coming into Wednesday night's game Valera is hitting .284 with 13 homeruns, 49 RBI's and a .903 OPS through 69 games played. He also has a .389 OBP while drawing 43 walks on the season.

Valera is the most intriguing outfield prospect in the organization since Manny Ramirez and his bat is almost a finished product and ahead of Noel at this point in their careers.

The 20-year-old Noel was recently promoted to Double-A Akron after leading the Midwest League with 19 homeruns with Lake County. Since his promotion to Akron Noel has hit five homeruns over his first six games including back-to-back multi homerun games against Erie last week.

Noel's 24 homeruns currently have him tied for the most in all minor league baseball. While his power has been impressive, he is still not a finished product at the plate as struggles at time making contact at times striking out at a 30% rate. He still sports a .857 OPS on the season and a ridiculous .324 ISO over 68 games between Lake County and Akron.

Noel has also recently been working in outfield making the switch from both third and first base. Despite his size he is a terrific athlete, and the move is just an attempt to open up more doors for him to break the MLB roster in the future.

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Todd Paquette
TODD PAQUETTE

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