Happy New Year WFNY readers! A new year means a new baseball season, and a new baseball season means a new Farmer Ethan’s Almanac series. This year leading up to the start of the Guardians season I will be counting down Cleveland’s top 30 prospects as decided by yours truly. We’ll talk a little about each player’s tools, how they performed in 2022 and what to expect in 2023. Without further adieu, let’s get started with number 30.

The Cuyahoga Pitching Factory LLC has always been amongst the most economical compared to its competitors, rivaled only by the likes of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Tampa Bay Rays, and more recently the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros. Cleveland’s player development staff excels at turning decent arms good, and good arms great. The organization has a type too, preferring experienced college arms and valuing command over stuff. Even when they acquire arms in trades the Guardians typically stick to this modus operandi.

And that’s how we end up with top prospect No. 30, Peyton Battenfield, a 25-year-old right-handed pitcher out of Oklahoma State. Battenfield came to Cleveland at the 2021 Trade Deadline when the Guardians sent outfielders Daniel Johnson and Jordan Luplow to the Rays for the former 2019 ninth-round pick. When he joined Cleveland Battenfield was in the midst of a strong 2021 with the Rays across High-A and Double-A, and he experienced very little drop-off when he joined the Akron Rubberducks in August.

Battenfield went 7-1 across 21 games (19 starts) with both organizations between two levels totaling 103 innings pitched. He accrued a cumulative 2.53 ERA, 131 strikeouts, 19 walks, and a 0.83 WHIP by the end of 2021, and found himself on more than a few prospect radars. The effort was enough to earn a spot in Triple-A Columbus’ rotation for 2022, but we saw some regression with the Clippers this past season.

An absolute gem today from Peyton Battenfield (@PBattenfield) for the @CLBClippers vs Indianapolis:

8 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K – 93 pitches – 66 strikes#FutureGuardians pic.twitter.com/Da8VJoR42o

— Future Guardians of THE LAND (@FutureGOTL) July 14, 2022

Battenfield led the farm system in innings pitched in 2022, throwing 153.2 innings while posting a 3.63 ERA, striking out 109 batters, walking 57, a 1.27 WHIP and a career-worst FIP at any level of 4.68. He massively outperformed his FIP by keeping the ball in the yard (career-best 9% home run to fly ball ratio), and stranding 75.1% of baserunners. The alarming numbers for Battenfield last season, and also the reason to believe he can bounce back, was the precipitous drop in his strikeout rate and the jump in walks. He held a 32.9% K% (11.45 K/9) and a 5% BB% (1.66 BB/9) in 2021, but saw those numbers dip to a 17% K% (6.38 K/9) and an 8.9% BB% (3.34 BB/9).

Despite the dip in strikeouts and the uptick in walks, Battenfield still proved an effective starter in 2022 and had fans clamoring for him to be the next pitching prospect up for the Guardians when the injury bug came for starters Zach Plesac and Aaron Civale. So what is it about Battenfield that allowed him to still be so effective?

2022 Triple-A highlights for Peyton Battenfield. pic.twitter.com/wSr2MpxLV6

— Guardians Baseball Insider (@Official_CGBI) October 3, 2022

In true Cuyahoga Pitching Factory fashion, Battenfield is a command-over-stuff prospect, utilizing a four-pitch mix of fastball, curveball, changeup and slider. The 6 foot 4 inch 224 pound righty grades out to having an above average fastball that sits in the low-to-mid 90s, an average curveball and changeup, and the slider is a newer offering for Battenfield, ditching his cutter at the end of 2021 in its favor. His 2022 didn’t show it, but Battenfield is capable of generating more swing-and-miss, and the slider could help bring that back into his profile.

Battenfield is currently on Cleveland’s 40-man roster after he spent a weekend in Toronto when Guardians reliever James Karinchak didn’t travel with the team for the road series. That alone puts him on the short list of candidates to fill in alongside fellow prospects Xzavion Curry, Hunter Gaddis, Logan Allen and Konnor Pilkington should any injuries occur at the big league level.

In the short term however keep an eye on Battenfield in Spring Training and through the early parts of the Triple-A season, and pay attention to the strikeouts and walks. His stuff was good enough to still be effective during his first stint in the upper minors. Barring any sort of injury a rebound in strikeouts and limiting self-inflicted wounds should help Battenfield find that other gear he’s shown he possesses. At best he has a chance to be a respectable back-of-the-rotation arm, and with Plesac’s future somewhat muddled in Cleveland he may get a chance sooner rather than later.