Lisbel Diaz, SF (A), Cal League Player of the Week In Video Form

Diaz logged 55 A‑ball games in 2024 as an 18-year-old. And he kind of lit it up over his final 26. The dynasty world did­n’t seem too impressed, as Diaz was hard­ly ros­tered, mak­ing him my easy Giants B‑Side choice. Here’s how he fin­ished 2024:

The first three weeks of the sea­son, Diaz was kind of qui­et, but he got going with a POW per­for­mance. Here’s what he did to win that praise:

And here is every­thing he did over those six games in eight min­utes:

As you can see, Diaz is far from a fin­ished prod­uct. I’ve been impressed with some swings he’s got­ten off, but he’s not a per­fect tech­ni­cian. (I wish we had a side view of that home run.) The out­field work needs sea­son­ing too, but he’s so freak­ing young. Diaz is the kind of young, aggres­sive bat I like. On the attack, but not out of con­trol, wild­ly flail­ing at any and every­thing. He’s look­ing to fire in the first three pitch­es. He’s not afraid to attack any offering/speed, and this lends itself to learn­ing how to be a dan­ger­ous hit­ter on any count and loca­tion. That’s what the best hit­ters in the world end up doing.

At this point, Diaz’s future looks like a cor­ner out­field­er. Bummed we did­n’t get a good throw to spy on, but my sus­pi­cion is the arm isn’t a fea­ture of his game. So a right-hand­ed left field­er needs to hit and hit and hit. It’s the bat I’m inter­est­ed in any­way. Hop­ing a blend of pow­er and hit takes form here. I might be push­ing it, league-size-wise, with some of my spec­u­la­tive shares, but Diaz is one I’m going to be patient with. Diaz is already post­ing big EVs for a teenag­er, and he’s not even swing­ing it as effi­cient­ly and explo­sive­ly as he may one day. It’s not out of the ques­tion to think he could add mus­cles, too.

I’m expect­ing suc­cess from Diaz this sea­son in the Cal. We’ll want to watch the strike­outs, of course, but this look gives con­fi­dence. Brody Brecht and Lebar­ron John­son over­matched him, account­ing for 4 of his 5 strike­outs this week, but they are going to over­match more expe­ri­enced hit­ters, too. Let’s see if Diaz can keep it rolling and per­haps even find him­self a 19-year-old in Eugene by year’s end. The 2% feels mighty light to me. Is Diaz a West Coast mud spe­cial? More weeks like above, and he won’t be cheap for long.

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