It's stupid, but the thing that got me thinking about doing a Cutter Coffey breakdown was this image I ran across today from
@sittingstill at Spring Training '23. It's just so different than the other images I've seen on him, from the tattoo (which appears to be prayer hands) to the multiple wristbands. Purple ones are usually for some sort of disease awareness. Not sure about the others, but combined with the facial expression & the tongue thing it just creates a different image in my mind than the one I have him Coffey being kind of passive, soft & not necessarily comfortable in his own skin, which fed into my concerns with things like his terrible hitting in high-A & the fact that he seemed to be making an error every day for a while.
SoxProspects had him #37 in their last rankings & I had him 43rd in mine (the players I have ahead of him who SP doesn't have ahead of him are Campbell, Arias, the other Coffey, Rosier, Paez, Gambrell, Troye, Yuten & Penrod - they have Alcantara, Walter & Blizzard ahead of him & I don't).
Cutter was the Red Sox 2nd round draft pick in '22 (drafted between Mikey Romero & Roman Anthony), after a successful career as a shortstop & pitcher at Liberty High School in Bakersfield, CA. He signed for a little over $1.8m, about $60k below slot. The 41st pick he was drafted with was the makeup pick for not signing Jud Fabian. Cutter threw a low 90s fastball & a sharp low 80s slider, but the Red Sox determined that his best path was as a hitter, which was the consensus opinion at the time, despite his pitcher name.
Scouting reports note very good success against lesser competition, but some trouble making contact against better competition. In terms of fielding, he was thought of as having too little range to stick at SS, but considering the strength of his arm & soft hands, all the makings of becoming a solid 3B.
Here is a video from a high school event:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMGM8mKD5k
The fact that he was struggling so much against the batting practice pitcher & appeared to be dipping under every outside pitch was a bit concerning. Seemed able to clear his hips & drive the ball when it was up & in, but didn't seem capable of hitting pitches out over the plate. Hopefully that's not still a thing. In terms of the fielding, obviously a very strong arm, but didn't seem that comfortable & fluid.
Here's another video which is a couple months older. Doesn't really change much for me:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzqxqJLP1Ys
I will note that I accidentally saw some Mikey Romero HS footage after & I was much more impressed with the defensive fluidity & ability to put bat to ball in a sensible manner.
Here's Coffey's SoxProspects page:
https://soxprospects.com/players/coffey-cutter.htm
Coffey did not play a lot in his 1st season after being drafted, getting in only 40 PAs in the FCL, without great success. He slashed .125/.300/.156 for a .456 OPS & 53 wRC+, 7 walks & 11 strikeouts. He also had 3 errors in 9 games in the field.
Alex Speier reported this Spring that Cutter would have to earn his way onto a full-season team if he did not want to repeat the FCL, & he did, earning a spot on Salem's roster.
He hit his 1st professional home run on June 7th:
View: https://twitter.com/salemredsox/status/1666488658570903552
In total with Salem, Coffey put up the following stats:
349 PAs slashing .226/.341/.348 (.689 OPS, 102 wRC+), 18 steals (6 cs), 12.9% bb/22.6% k. In 75 games in the field, he had 17 errors.
Coffey played in Salem on August 8th, & then was promoted & played in Greenville the very next day (1-3 with a walk). Unfortunately, hits were few & far between at Greenville for Cutter...
79 PAs slashing .136/.253/.167 (.420 OPS, 28 wRC+), 1 steal (1 cs), 13.9% bb/26.6% k. In 18 games in the field, he had 3 errors.
The only good thing about his transition to high-A was that he kept his walk rate up. His BABIP dropped from .288 with Salem to .191 with Greenville. He was also terrible in the playoffs which is not factored into those #s...
I gave Greenville crap before the playoffs started for batting Coffey 2nd & Campbell 7th. I kind of stand by that... but it's somehow worked out.
In the playoffs, Campbell is hitting .583 with a 1.560 OPS.
In the playoffs, Coffey is hitting .059 with a .118 OPS.
Coffey GIDP after a lead off single by Paulino smh.
On to the 9th up 7-2.
In their 4 playoff games, Coffey was 1-18 with 0 walks & 6 strikeouts.
So where does this leave us? Probably about where we started this when we drafted a guy who struggled to make contact against good pitching & lacked defensive fluidity & range. But he's still young, seems to have decent plate discipline & athleticism, & if he can fix his approach & settle in at 3B...he's not a lost cause. But he absolutely needs to fix something to get there because he appears severely overmatched at the moment.
