Devin Saltiban

Role: Everyday Second Baseman
Risk: High – Saltiban has positional and contact concerns, but he has intriguing offensive impact, good athleticism, and a background that was always likely to take time for him to adjust to pro ball.
Summary: The Phillies immediately moved Saltiban from the outfield to the infield after he was drafted, first to shortstop last year, and then to a full year at second base. He looks like someone still learning the position, and the Phillies should give him plenty of time to see if he can get the finer parts of the position down. If he does have to move back to the outfield, it becomes imperative that he can play center, because his bat is unlikely to play in a corner. His offense is a different sort of work in progress. Saltiban shows above average to plus raw power (102.1 mph 90th percentile and 109.8 mph max exit velocity), and already is adept at pulling the ball in the air for some crushed home runs. He has a solid approach at the plate with moderate chase and a good feel for turning on balls in the zone. He was susceptible to offspeed pitches, and his whiff rate was high for the league and it showed in low contact rates. Unsurprisingly, he generally improved over the course of the season. If he can stick on the infield and continue to show this kind of power output, he can get away with the contact not being a strength, he just needs to get it to not be an exploitable hole.
2025 Outlook: Saltiban should be the everyday second baseman for the BlueClaws and will probably spend the full year at Jersey Shore. The park is likely to decrease his power, but the key will be whether his contact issues improve.

Role: Average Regular
Risk: Extreme – Saltiban did not face top competition in high school, was not on the showcase circuit vs top arms, and is moving to shortstop having never really played it before signing. It is a decently long list of areas where he is going to need to prove something against an unknown.
Summary: The Phillies drafts under Brian Barber have been very comfortable with risk and small sample sizes, and no one probably exemplifies that more than Saltiban. He is a high school outfielder from Hawaii who did not really appear in showcases and was relatively unknown. As a high schooler he played 11 games in the MLB Draft League for West Virginia against college aged guys and was good. He then reportedly excelled at the Draft Combine. The Phillies took him in the draft and announced him as a shortstop, despite him never really playing there (it turns out that a crosschecker saw him on the infield and made the suggestion). He looks promising at shortstop, but it is still very early in that process. He might have enough speed to move out to center field if the infield experiment doesn’t work, but there is a danger he slides down the defensive spectrum to corner outfield. He currently has plus speed, but depending on how he fills out that could change. At the plate he isn’t the biggest guy, but he has a quick bat and short swing, and there is definitely the makings of at least average power and a solid hit tool. Nothing immediately jumps off the page for Saltiban, but he sort of looks like a ball player, and nothing stands out as a negative either. It is possible the Phillies got a real steal in the third round by moving quickly on a rising player, there are just still too many moving parts and unknowns to really make that evaluation yet.
2024 Outlook: The early indications are that the Phillies might hold Saltiban back in Extended Spring Training to work on the move to shortstop. His bat looks ready for Clearwater, so they may not be able to hold him back for the whole season.