As Baseball America wends its way through its postseason (pre-preseason?) awards, Carter Kieboom became the second National to make one of its Top 20 lists as the #5 prospect for the Eastern League (sorry, no link: paid sub).
Given the Durham boys’ penchant for double-dipping, this is likely the first of two appearances for the 21-y.o., who was drafted 28th overall in the 2016 First Year Player Draft.
As mentioned in the previous post, the younger Kieboom struggled through a .198/.308/.347 month of April for the Potomac Nationals (though he did hit four HRs) before the pyrotechnics from his prosterior began in May, including a 10-game hit streak from May 3 to May 13 that overlapped Juan Soto’s soiree from April 24th to May 9th.
Kieboom finished May at .391/.458/.576 with 3HR and followed that up with a .327/.410/.635 mark over 14 games before his promotion to Harrisburg following the Carolina League All-Star break.
He remained red-hot through his first 11 games at AA (.995OPS, 2HR) but the league adjusted to him and he spent the rest of 2018 trying to figure out advanced pitching (.573 OPS in July, .738 in August).
The longstanding question is whether Kieboom can stick at short, as one might expect from 26 errors in 118 games (obligatory reminder: minor-league scorkeepers are uneven in their decisions). A slide over to either 2B or 3B would appear to be dependent on the big club’s whims short-term needs, as well as the development of next-in-line Luis Garcia.