{"id":824224,"date":"2026-10-08T02:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T02:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/824224\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T02:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T02:18:17","slug":"2026-arizona-diamondbacks-prospect-all-stars-middle-infielders-outfielders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/824224\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Arizona Diamondbacks Prospect All Stars: Middle Infielders + Outfielders"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my last article<\/a>, we took a look through the Arizona Diamondbacks farm system to find the starting pitcher, catcher, first, and third basemen with the best season in 2026. Since there was a little confusion, I thought i\u2019d provide some clarification about the qualifications. All we\u2019re looking at is who had the most productive seasons, using wRC+, as it\u2019s one of the few adjusted stats for minor league hitters. If you\u2019d like to take a look yourself at the Minor League Leaderboards, you can find a link here<\/a>, which I have set to show only players in the Diamondbacks organization.<\/p>\n

Kayson Cunningham<\/a>, the D-backs top pick and #18th overall in the 2025 draft, had a disappointing 11 game cup of coffee, but he had a much better 2026 starting with monstrous first half for the Visalia Rawhide. In 43 games for the Low-A affiliate, he hit .381\/.471\/.506 with a .451 wOBA and 156 wRC+. While he wasn\u2019t quite as good after his promotion to High-A Hillsboro, he made enough adjustments to be a league average, while also stealing twice as many bases in just 20 more games.<\/p>\n

In 63 games, he\u2019d hit .252\/.360\/.391 with a .347 wOBA and a 100 wRC+. In the 106 games games Cunningham played in overall between Visalia and Hillsboro, he put up a triple slash line of .307\/.407\/.440 with .391 wOBA 124 wRC+ with 30 SB (while only getting caught stealing 6 times).<\/p>\n

I would expect the Diamondbacks to start Cunningham in AA if they\u2019re going to be aggressive with his development. Alternatively, I could see him repeating High-A and spending the first month or two Hillsboro before being moved up to AA. Most of the players mentioned here could be starters at second except Cunningham, who for some reason is listed as a second baseman on Fangraphs despite having NEVER played there as a pro.<\/p>\n

There are a few other players that are honorable mentions. Carson Kerce<\/a> had a solid debut after being drafted earlier this summer, albeit just a very small sample size. In 25 games in Low-A Visalia Kerce hit .295\/.417\/.421 with a .396 wOBA and a 124 wRC+.<\/p>\n

As an 18 year old in the Dominican Summer League, Alam Bruno<\/a> gets an hononorable mention, despite hitting .270\/.430\/.409 with a 110 WRC+ in 35 games split between the two DSL teams. Leonardo Sevilla <\/a>is another teenage prospect in the DSL who had a promising 2026 season. The 18 year old switching middle infielder hit .293\/.435\/395 with a 106 wRC+ in 51 games in his debut season.<\/p>\n

As I pointed out in the first article in this series, one could easily have Danny Serretti<\/a> as the starting second baseman, but instead I put him at third base. He was very good at both second and third base, but his likely future is as an utility player\/emergency call up, at best. Instead we have a couple different options at second.<\/p>\n

Native Arizonan Demetrio Crisantes<\/a> started the year on the IL and only made his season debut with Amarillo at the end of May after making a rehab assignment with the ACL Dbacks and then the Hillsboro Hops. In Amarillo he\u2019d play 35 games, putting up 130 wRC+ with a triple slash line of 319\/.413\/.548 and a .422 wOBA. He showed strong bat to ball skills and even hit for the cycle. His promotion to Reno showed the first real challenge of his professional career, leading to him hitting just .278 .343 .412 .with 343 wOBA and an 82 wRC+.<\/p>\n

Crisantes was especially bad immediately after the promotion, and I\u2019d guess his even worse .284 xwOBA is a reflection of that. Given the injury shortened season, it\u2019s no surprise the Diamondbacks sent Crisantes to the Arizona Fall League. He\u2019s currently playing for the Salt River Rafters, where he has an OPS over 1.200 at the time of writing, although with a caveat of being a tiny sample size. With a continued strong showing in the Fall League, I suspect rumors will ensue, considering past drama surrounding the man currently manning the second base position, Ketel Marte. Sidenote: Both Cunningham and Crisantes were born in Tucson, so there\u2019s a possible future with both middle infielders being born in Southern Arizona.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, we have JD Dix<\/a>. Dix wasn\u2019t quite as good as Crisantes in the first half, but the drop off in the second half wasn\u2019t nearly as severe. In 48 games with the Low-A level Visalia Rawhide, Dix hit .253\/378\/468 with a .382 wOBA and a 115 wRC+, while showcasing his interesting power\/speed combo by swatting nine homers and a pair of triples, while swiping 19 bases in 20 attempts.<\/p>\n

Dix played in 57 games with the High-A Hillsboro Hops, putting up a .251\/.331\/.372 with a .324 wOBA and an 85 wRC+. His power dipped, with only three homers leaving the yard, though he managed to triple three more times. He wasn\u2019t quite the burner on the base paths, stealing 17 bases successfully in 21 attempts.<\/p>\n

This is going to be a tough nut to crack, as the D-backs are largely devoid of outfield depth at the moment. It would be a little easier if Ryan Waldschmidt and Tommy Troy hadn\u2019t made their MLB debuts in 2026, as both had above-average outputs while in AAA.<\/p>\n

Troy did put up a .312\/412\/.466 triple slash with a .401 wOBA and 118 wRC+ in 38 games, while Waldschmidt put up just as respectable .288\/.405\/.492 triple slash, with a .404 wOBA and a 120 wRC+ in 51 games. Since this series of article is deliberately excluding any players with ANY MLB service time accrued, they didn\u2019t make that cut, but I thought their 2026 seasons were promising and worth a mention, even if the results were frustrating at times when they were at the MLB level.<\/p>\n

Two out of three of the best outfield seasons were in the Dominican Summer League, and only one qualified hitter in the upper levels of the minor leagues with a positive wRC+. Before I get into those players, there is an honorable mention.<\/p>\n

Avery Owusu-Asiedu<\/a> had an awful run in High-A Hillsboro, but completely turned his season around once he was promoted to Double-A Amarillo. In 92 games with the Hillsboro Hops, Owusu-Asiedu hit just .202\/.289\/.369 with an anemic .298 wOBA and a 69 wRC+. If we were just looking at his time in the Northwestern League, he might actually be dishonorable mention, but that\u2019s not the case. In 30 games in Amarillo, Owusu-Asiedu hit 14 homers compared to the 13 he hit in a third of the plate appearances. That surge in power gave him a triple slash line of .328\/.423\/.776 with a .488 wOBA and a 171 wRC+.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t just a park factor based breakout as Owusu-Asiedu looked completely different at the plate. His numbers combined on the season are almost respectable as a result, .236\/.327\/.479 with a .352 wOBA and a 98 wRC+, which is massive turnaround considering how bad he\u2019d been in Hillsboro. Owusu-Asiedu is an above average fielder with a cannon for an arm. If he can hit like he has down the stretch, the D-backs might have an actual prospect here.<\/p>\n

Our first real All-Star outfielder is 17 year old Joscar Hernandez<\/a>, who in 49 games in the Dominican Summer League hit 283\/465\/449 with a .465 wOBA and a 137 wRC+. Hernandez was an absolute burner on the bases, swiping 31 bases successfully in 37 attempts. That\u2019s a full season pace of 90+ stolen bases. He also showed solid plate disciple, striking out 18.8% of the time while walking 17% of the time.<\/p>\n

Our second outfielder, Jeremy Suriel<\/a>, was also a 17 year old in the DSL. In 54 games he hit .277\/.402\/.474 with a .423 wOBA and a 104 wRC+. Suriel was just as much of a burner on the basepaths, swiping 26 bases successfully in 28 attempts, in addition to swatting four triples. That\u2019s a full season pace of 12 triples, borderline Corbin Carroll-esque. While he didn\u2019t walk quite as much Hernandez, Surriel did walk (14.7%) more than he struck out (13.3%), which is worth mentioning.<\/p>\n

Our final outfielder is 24 year old Trent Youngblood<\/a>, the Dbacks\u2019 10th rounder in the 2024 draft. Youngblood started his season in High A Hillsboro, playing in 72 games and putting up .289\/.408\/.397 with a .378 wOBA and a 120 wRC+. Youngblood hit only a meager five homeruns in the pitching friendly NWL, but he was another burner on the bases, swiping 24 bases in 32 attempts. He showed solid plate discipline as well, walking in 14.2% of plate appearances, while striking out only 16.9%, in addition to getting plunked at a decent rate that further boosted his OBP.<\/p>\n

Youngblood was then promoted to Double-A Amarillo for 43 games, where he hit .290\/.410\/.463 with a .398 wOBA and a 115 wRC+. To no one\u2019s surprise, his power surged while in Amarillo, as he swatted the same amount of home runs (5) in 29 fewer games, but he also tripled his triples total (3 vs 1), while swapping five more bases without getting caught.<\/p>\n

Youngblood finished his regular season with a six game cup of coffee with the Triple A level Reno Aces, which did not go particularly well (4 for 23 with a double & a triple). For his season total, in 121 games, Youngblood put up a triple slash of .285\/.402\/.419 with a .381 wOBA and a 114 wRC+. After finishing the regular season, Youngblood rejoined his Sod Poodles teammate Owusu-Asiedu for the postseason, and both contributed to Amarillo\u2019s Texas League championship run.<\/p>\n

Next week we\u2019re going to look at the best relief pitchers, the best designated hitter in the Arizona Diamondbacks farm system, and we\u2019ll discuss some players who didn\u2019t make the cut. That\u2019s it for today! Do you disagree with my choices? Should Waldy and Tommy Troy have been starters? Do you think some other prospects I didn\u2019t talk about are more deserving? Let me know in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In my last article, we took a look through the Arizona Diamondbacks farm system to find the starting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404],"tags":[146,22,75770,78346,4314,5,38,46399,4],"class_list":["post-824224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-arizona","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-arizona-diamondbacks-analysis","tag-arizona-diamondbacks-prospects","tag-arizonadiamondbacks","tag-baseball","tag-diamondbacks","tag-diamondbacks-farm-system","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117402894544818423","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}