Cutter Coffey finding his swing in Salem
Cutter Coffey was the second-round pick (41st overall) of the Boston Red Sox in the 2022 MLB Draft. He was sandwiched in between Mikey Romero (24th overall) and Roman Anthony (79th overall) as three straight high school prospects selected by Boston to start the draft.
Romero made the jump to Single-A at the end of the 2022 season and made a phenomenal first impression. Anthony also found his way to Single-A to finish off the season. While he struggled at the level, he did clean up in Rookie Ball.
Meanwhile, Coffey couldn't get out of the FCL. The right-handed hitting shortstop went 4-for-32 with one double and 11 strikeouts. An 0-for-21 stretch to his career didn't help.
Fast forward to 2023. Romero started the year injured (and is still working his way back), but he had gained the interest of fans. Anthony was gaining some traction too, and intriguing underlying numbers in Single-A to start the season helped. Then an immediate boom in production after being promoted to High-A on June 13 made Anthony a can't-miss name.
Where was Cutter Coffey, though? The shortstop did start the season in Single-A, potentially thanks to the injury to Romero, although the Red Sox might have wanted him at the level anyway.
However, Coffey was not changing the narrative about him at the start of the year. Heading into June 4, he was slashing .188/.335/.241 with seven doubles. Coffey had just 12 RBI, 19 runs scored, and 11 steals. The steals were solid, and 29 walks helped keep his OBP high. A rising strikeout number (39) was starting to hurt as well, though.
On June 4, Coffey went 1-for-3 with two walks, his first triple, two RBI, and one run. Things have started to figure themselves out since then.
From June 4 through June 19, Coffey is 14-for-49 (.286) with four doubles, one triple, and two home runs. He's driven in eight runs, scored eight more, and stolen one base. Coffey's walked six times and struck out 12.
We're starting to see that raw power from Coffey that was hyped up when he was drafted. And we've seen a couple of nice stretches from him. So what's changed for the 19-year-old?
You could point to the age and that he's starting to get comfortable in Single-A. 19 is young, and it's even younger when considering he was 18 up until May 21. Unsurprisingly, Coffey has only faced pitchers that are older than him.
I have another theory, though. We're starting to see a more aggressive version of Coffey at the plate. Who knows, maybe that has to do with his level of comfort.
Coffey is starting to take what pitchers give him. He's not sitting back on that good pitch to hit in favor of seeing a few more pitches as much anymore.
We're still seeing him work a lot of counts and get to two strikes. That's something I think we'll start to see less of as well, though. Working counts isn't a bad thing. I highly praise players for OBP all the time. It's one of the reasons I think Ahbram Liendo is much better than you might realize. But it's also not a bad thing to swing at a kill pitch.
When he was drafted, the highlight was Cutter Coffey's power potential. Boston Red Sox fans didn't get to see that much through May of 2023. It doesn't help that he's playing in that home run destroyer of a ballpark in Salem. However, Coffey wasn't doing himself any favors, either.
A more aggressive Cutter Coffey is starting to show why the Red Sox used a second-round pick on him. As of June 20, he holds a much better .214/.345/.319 slash line. Let's check back in a month. I'm willing to bet we see another significant jump.
Follow Hunter on Twitter @Hunter_Noll.
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