2024 Cleveland Guardians Prospect Scouting Report: #45 INF Juan Benjamin

Benjamin has your standard contact, speed, defense skill set as a switch hitting middle infielder that can profile in a utility role

Juan Benjamin Bio

• Age (2024 season): 23

• Acquired: International FA (2019)

• 2023 Level: Low-A

• Height: 5’9

• Weight: 165

• Bats: Both

• Throws: Right

Juan Benjamin 2023 Stats

• PA: 412

• AVG/OBP/SLG: .271/.362/.346

• 2B: 16

• HR: 3

• SB: 24/34

• K%/BB%: 19.6%/.11.9%

• wRC+: 108

Juan Benjamin 2023 Scouting Grades

• Hit: 40

• Power: 30 

• Speed: 55

• Defense: 50

• Arm: 50

• Overall: 35 

• Risk: High

• ETA: 2027

Build & Background

Benjamin is an international free agent that signed with the Guardians out of the Dominican Republic in 2019. He’s a switch hitting middle infielder with a compact build but not much a frame for future projection growth wise.

What Benjamin Does Well

You won’t be surprised that the undersized infielder’s best skills are contact, speed and defense, like many others in Cleveland’s system with his stature over the years. He does make a fair amount of and can pull the ball decently, though he shows the ability to use the whole field. Thus far he’s been adept at working counts and laying off non-competitive pitches enough to draw walks at the lower levels, especially when ahead in the count. Benjamin gets out of the box well and hits his stride quickly, making him an above average runner. He shows some range on the infield, moreso at second base. He has enough arm strength to handle the left side of the infield.

Where Benjamin Needs to Improve

Adding strength might boost some of Benjamin’s tools just a little bit. He could use a little more reliable arm strength from the left side of the infield. He takes some very heavy cuts at the plate at times despite not possessing a ton of strength and that hurts him when chasing heat. When he’s behind in the count, he will expand the zone, especially against breaking stuff in the dirt. Benjamin is a switch hitter that doesn’t really pack much punch from either side of the plate, but he struggles with contact quality even more from his right side, almost to the point where you wonder if he should consider only hitting left handed. He probably doesn’t have enough range to handle short on a regular basis, but could probably moonlight there occasionally long term. 

Key Stats

.283/.376/.368 vs RHP, .227/.306/.267 vs. LHP in 2023. There weren’t many elite-level left-handed pitchers dominating the Low-A circuit in 2023, but Benjamin generally struggled with a lot of them. He takes big backs from the left side at times, but doesn’t cut loose as much from the right side, and even so struggled to do much damage. A switch to hitting left handed might help in many ways. He did hit .276/.367/.354 against older pitchers in the league, so he may be able to carry a similar performance in High-A, hopefully improving in some areas and adding strength.

Intangibles

Hard to say much about Benjamin’s intangibles, but we know the Guardians do run a high school education, including english classes for all low minors players, so any ability to learn and be bilingual is always impressive to me. Benjamin does appear to hustle and run hard out of the box every time and generally play hard all the time.

Future

Due to his lack of size and punch at the plate, it’s hard to see Benjamin being a consistent offensive performer at the next level. The other issues is that he runs a high groundball rate, which could help him take advantage of his speed. But his speed and glove do give him some utility infield upside, which is why he’s on this list. And if he adds strength to his aggressive swings that he still can make contact on, and get the ball in the air some, he could at least have enough of a bench bat profile, and that even limited upside makes him worth mentioning in case he takes some of these jumps.

Role

35 - Utility infielder