2024 Cleveland Guardians Prospect Scouting Report: #37 OF Jake Fox

Fox made a good transition to the outfield in 2023 and has good OBP skills along with an interesting batted ball profile

Jake Fox Bio

• Age (2024 season): 22

• Acquired: 2022 Draft (Round 4)

• 2023 Level: Low-A/High-A

• Height: 5’8

• Weight: 180

• Bats: Left

• Throws: Right

Jake Fox 2023 Stats

• PA: 453

• AVG/OBP/SLG: .256/.330/.398

• 2B: 23

• HR: 8

• SB: 9/14

• K%/BB%: 22.7%/9.9%

Jake Fox 2024 Scouting Grades

• Hit: 40

• Power: 40

• Speed: 55

• Defense: 55

• Arm: 50

• Overall: 40

• Risk: High

• ETA: 2026

Build & Background

Fox has a medium athlete build with a pretty solid frame overall. There’s still some projection left there with room to add strength throughout. Fox works from an upright stance in the box with his arms away from his body and an upright barrel. Uses a high leg lift into his load. Solid balance in overall swing. Shows good rotational quickness and has good posture and hands to get on plane with the baseball. Fox was Cleveland’s only prep hitter drafted in the 2021 class. He was committed to Florida. Comes from a family involved with baseball and has ex-pro’s as part of his inner circle. 

What Fox Does Well

A solid amount of patience at the plate, speed, and emerging defense are at the top of Fox’s softer skills sets. He has strong and quick hands, and a swing geared to hit fly balls to his pull side. He’s a good athlete and is rotational and matches plane well with his swing. Fox is definitely a typical lefty that feasts on inside pitches, which is in line with his pull/fly ball approach. But he can hit above the zone too.  A little surprising that Fox didn’t run more in 2023, but he’s a pretty solid runner out of the box and probably settles in with above-average speed overall in the long term. As someone who was primarily a second baseman in 2022, he has enough arm for right field and all over. The year started out a little rough for Fox in center field but as the season went on, his overall route running took steps forward where I think there’s a chance he’ll wind up an above-average defender out there. The batted ball profile suggests some intrigue offensively, though he needs to add strength and improve some swing decisions overall to find more of it.

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Where Fox Needs to Improve

Fox still has some room in his frame to add strengt that could help him add some pop to his game. He appears to be more patient against left handed pitching, which is good and will help his offensive floor, as he was willing to try to draw walks against them, though he struggled to to make enough contact vs. southpaws. As he faces better left handed pitching when he moves to Double-A, his ability to draw those walks will be tested with better strike throwing. He’s got a good enough approach overall to draw walks but his swing decisions on breaking balls could use tightening up as well and better breaking stuff in Double-A may hurt his contact a bit, as well as his ability to work walks. Defensively, his reads got better in the outfield as the year, but also still needs to continue to be more consistent. 

Key Stats

At Low-A in 2022, Fox appeared to be a little passive, but there’s some chance that was due to the quality of pitching in the league, where walk rates have been high. I have some thought that the quality of pitching in Low-A (at least the Carolina League) has been an issue since they eliminated short-season ball. Eithe way, Fox looked more in line with his natural approach. The rise in the strikeout rate will raise a little flag, but his walk rate looked less inflated and in line with his swinging strike rate. This probably looks closer to the kind of actual approach for him.

On another note, the two things that are solid indicators in Fox’s profile as his ability to pull fly balls. At Low and High-A, he’s been able to run higher fly ball rates (45.7% in 2023) than ground balls, and pull the ball (51% in 2023). He doesn’t have huge power, but his batted ball profile might help him find more usable power than he would have without it.

Intangibles

Fox talked last year about sticking to the plan and trusting the work he put in after he got off to a slow start in April and May. From June on, he hit .279/.348/.432, good for a 120 wRC+, with a 20.9 K%, and 9.2 BB%. The plan seemed to work and he put in the work to get better. He also improved throughout the year as an outfielder, also speaking to the same work and process. His growth in the outfield, and switching from primarily an infielder in 2022 to primarily outfield in 2023, especially in centerfield gives him high grades for work ethic and makeup. He also has pro baseball bloodlines and advisors to help him navigate his journey. 

Future

Double-A will be a big test for Fox. He’s going to be young for the level and will need to prove he can continue to control the zone against better pitching and improve those swing decisions, especially against left handers. He still has some work to do in the outfield, but defensively he looks like he has a good future there along with his speed. He should try to fun more in 2024. There’s an interesting chance here for a bench player with some possibly underrated pop if he improves his strength and contact skills, and can provide defensive value in the outfield, if he can maintain a presence on the infield as well. It’s clear Cleveland thiks his primary future is in the outfield, but the versatility would help him as offensively he’s likely a platoon bat in the majors if he passes the test at Double-A in 2024.

Role 

40 - Backup/platoon OF, OF/INF bench role player