Xzavion Curry is our No. 20 Guardians prospect for 2023

Feb 8, 2023 - 2:38 PM

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For a hot minute there it looked like we might have our first (and only) vote-off of the top-20 prospect list as the final spot came down to the wire between Will Dion and Xzavion Curry. But, with 28% of the vote, Curry takes the spot and rounds out our list.

Curry made his debut against the Tigers last season, with his teammates and friends from the minor leagues in attendance.

He allowed three earned runs in 5.0 innings in that start. In his next MLB outing, which came weeks later on Sept. 3, he lasted 4.1 innings, but walked five and allowed another three runs with no strikeouts. Obviously, there are some things to work on, but as Quincy Wheeler noted in his spring training preview — the dude is a battler and incredibly easy to root for.

Selected by Cleveland in the seventh round of the 2019 draft, Curry didn’t pitch in a professional game until 2021 due to the pandemic wiping out the 2020 season, but he made the jump all the way from Single-A, through High-A, and to Double-A his debut professional season. After dominating the lower levels, he struggled a bit in Double-A and Triple-A last season, but his strikeout ability was enough to earn him a couple of spot starts with the big-league club.

Curry features a four-pitch mix with a low-90s four-seamer to set the table. When at his best, he gets by on pure command of all four of them, but as we saw in his brief cup of coffee last season, things get off the rails quickly when he can’t do that. None of his secondary offerings (or even his fastball) are elite, it’s just a matter of putting the right pitch in the right place at the last time — which he has the ability to do very, very well.

Unless he comes out in spring training and shows that his secondary stuff is at its 2021 levels, he will likely start the season at Triple-A to continue to refine his command. He’s an ideal candidate to make a spot start as needed, though, and will likely crack the rotation or earn a bullpen role sometime during the season.

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So without further ado, here is our full 2023 top prospects list, as voted on by you (click through for our write-ups on each prospect):

2023 Guardians Top Prospects

1. Daniel Espino, RHP
2. Gavin Williams, RHP
3. George Valera, OF
4. Tanner Bibee, RHP
5. Brayan Rocchio, IF
6. Bo Naylor, C
7. Will Brennan, OF
8. Angel Martinez, IF
9. Logan Allen, LHP
10. Chase DeLauter, OF
11. Gabriel Arias, IF
12. Cody Morris, RHP
13. Jhonkensy Noel, IF
14. Joey Cantillo, LHP
15. Juan Brito, IF
16. Jose Tena, IF
17. Justin Campbell, RHP
18. Petey Halpin, OF
19. Jaison Chourio, OF
20. Xzavion Curry, RHP

This means, sadly, that our prospect countdown has come to an end. Once again, thank you for participating, arguing, voting, suggesting prospects, and just generally being here. And huge thanks to Brian Hemminger for handling the majority of the load for this series yet again.