2025 Cleveland Guardians Prospect Scouting Report: #39 3B Alex Mooney
Mooney has the intangibles down, can he translate it into more consistency on the field in '25?
Bio
Age (2025 season): 23
Acquired: Draft (2023 Draft, Round 7)
2024 Level: High-A
Height: 6’1
Weight: 195
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
2025 Scouting Grades
Hit: 40
Power: 45
Speed: 55
Defense: 45
Arm: 50
Overall: 40
Risk: Moderate
ETA: 2027
First Impression
Average overall physical build. Maxed out for frame. Makes up for average frame with high energy, baseball IQ and leadership qualities. Aggressive player from swing tendencies, running and fielding style. Plays at 100% almost all the time.
What Makes Mooney Fun
A high motor can make any player fun and it’s what makes Mooney tick and worth watching. You’re unlikely to show up to the ballpark and not see Mooney giving 100% all of the time on all sides of the ball or being a leader between the lines or in the dugout. Offensively, Mooney is not afraid to be aggressive. He catches the ball out front with his swing and so far, generally has the pulled fly ball approach figured out. He got off to a hot start in 2024, staying back and showing good balance in his swing and making good decisions, and making plenty of hard contact. Mooney has at least average raw power on the infield and has the capability of taking advantage of it when he gets in the air as much as he did. His motor and pure speed give him more than enough ability to make an impact on the bases. Decent enough actions on the infield to handle second or third, and short in a pinch. Every team needs high IQ, high motor players with some pop and speed, and Mooney provides a healthy amount of all of that.
What Could Hold Mooney Back
Mooney does have some issues with contact and chase. Changeups and offspeed stuff started to give him more issues as he cooled off in the summer and was unable to get to his power for a few months. His aggressive approach can leave him susceptible to breaking stuff. Defensively, Mooney struggles with his throwing accuracy. Arm strength isn’t an issue, but he’ll alter between air-mailing throws from third base or in the dirt. It looks like a footwork issue at times, where he isn’t set or doesn’t sync his motion up with his lower half. It’s a correctable issue. He’s likely to handle third and second better in the long term than shortstop, in a temporary utility situation.
Key Metric
57.7% - Though Mooney says the work he did to adjust his swing and approach coming into 2024 were to help stay through the middle of the ball and hit it backup the middle, he wound up with a very high pull rate, especially early in the year. His exit velocities are enough to have average or above average raw power, and his pull rate can help him get to most of it if he can make enough contact.
Intangibles
It would appear Cleveland was pretty deliberate in its interest in Mooney. They went well over slot ($1M) to get him into the system that they ended up not signing two high school picks in the draft. Mooney is a high energy player that’s well regarded as a teammate and strong work ethic.
Future
How Mooney handles Double-A pitching should go a long way to determining where his future goes. There’s enough raw power power there for a regular at second base, there would be a short if he could handle short on a more regular basis. His power might not be enough to be a regular at third. His speed/raw power combination on the infield should be enough to handle a utility role on the dirt. It wouldn’t be a stretch to see him handle left or right field, either. Right now, he tracks like fringe-power over hit utility type with speed.
Role/Risk
40/High; High energy utility player with speed and some pop