Toolshed: April answers offseason questions

Yes, it's still early. It's only April 18.
But we just finished a long offseason, and in a long offseason, lots of questions that can't be immediately answered arise about some of the game's most prominent prospects. Now two weeks into the Minor League season, we're getting some answers. Not all, mind you. But some. And in the early going, some of MLB.com's Top 100 Prospects are providing quite positive answers to the biggest questions about them. These are some of those prospects that are putting their organizations and fans at ease early on in 2018:

(Note: All stats are through Monday's games unless otherwise specified.)
Is Double-A the level to challenge Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette? Not yet, anyway. At 19, Guerrero, the Blue Jays' top prospect, was the youngest player in the Eastern League on Opening Day and ended up being the Double-A circuit's first Player of the Week with a .361/.419/.639 line, two homers, four doubles and 12 RBIs in his first nine games with New Hampshire. Bo Bichette, Toronto's No. 2 prospect, is the second-youngest player in the Eastern League and has followed up his Minor League batting crown season (in which he hit .362 at two levels) by hitting .350/.422/.450 in his first nine games at the Minors' second-highest level. With such young players, there are sometimes hiccups in the early going as the prospects make the transition to seeing more seasoned arms. That just hasn't happened yet with these two.

Did injuries affect Juan Soto? A big old no on that one. Washington's No. 2 prospect returned to the South Atlantic League with Class A Hagerstown, only to win the circuit's first Player of the Week award after hitting .361/.489/.861 with four homers, two triples, two doubles, 10 walks and 19 RBIs in his first 10 games. Soto was limited to only 23 games with the Suns in 2017 due to ankle, hamstring and hamate bone injuries but did manage to hit .360 with three homers when he was on the field. He vowed to learn from his maladies and come back a stronger player, and it's been clear that he hasn't missed a step. The Nationals sent him back to Hagerstown just to get him a little more experience there, but it might not be long before he joins fellow Top 100 Prospect Carter Kieboom at Class A Advanced Potomac if the Sally League never proves to be a challenge.

Can Alex Verdugo hit for power? The answer here is trending closer to "Yes" than it was two weeks ago. It's still a maybe, though. The Dodgers' No. 2 prospect enjoyed a standout 2017 season that saw him hit .314 with an .825 OPS last season at Triple-A Oklahoma City en route to making his Major League debut. However, he finished with only six homers in the offense-rich Pacific Coast League and added one more in the Majors, highlighting how his power might be his weakest present tool. But in the last week alone, he's homered in three straight games, including one in walk-off style with his only at-bat of the game. Saying he's halfway to his 2017 total already sounds good anecdotally, but there might be some small-sample madness at play here. As of Tuesday, he wasn't getting the ball any more in the air; his fly-ball rate has actually held steady from 35.2 percent in 2017 to 35.3 percent in the early days of this campaign. Meanwhile, his home run-to-fly-ball rate has jumped from a low 4.4 percent to an unsustainable 25 percent. Don't get it wrong; it's promising that Verdugo is hitting more dingers, and he'll need to show some pop to crack a Los Angeles outfield that didn't even have room for a healthy Andrew Toles.

Will the Mike Soroka Hype Train ever slow down? Not yet, it seems. The train had plenty of steam after Soroka dominated Double-A as a 19-year-old last season, and it added some more when he handled himself admirably in three Grapefruit League appearances in the spring. The Braves kept him going with a push to Triple-A Gwinnett as a 20-year-old, and even the International League has yet to prove too much of a challenge. Over his first three starts -- including Tuesday night's -- Soroka has allowed five earned runs on 14 hits and two walks while fanning 20 over 15 2/3 innings. That's good for a 32.8 percent strikeout rate, 3.3 percent walk rate, 1.02 WHIP and 1.15 FIP. Because Soroka is so good at pitching in the zone, it wouldn't have been surprising to see Triple-A batters take advantage, but MLB.com's No. 31 overall prospect is still getting plenty of swings and misses (12.9 percent) with his fastball, slider and change as well. The way Soroka keeps passing tests, the Braves will have to think before long about giving him his toughest one yet with a push to the game's highest level.

How can Alex Faedo handle his first taste of pro ball? It's a mixed bag, but generally good. The Tigers took Faedo out of the University of Florida with the 18th overall pick last June but didn't let him pitch in the Minors after he'd thrown 123 2/3 collegiate innings. Despite the lack of pro experience, he was still sent to Class A Advanced Lakeland to begin his first full season, and he's proving plenty skillful at keeping runners off the basepaths. He's allowed four hits and no walks in 10 1/3 innings for a low, low WHIP of 0.39. That's the lowest mark of any top-100 pitching prospect, lower even than Shohei Ohtani's 0.46 in the Majors. The trouble? Two of those hits were home runs, meaning his 2.61 ERA and 4.55 aren't nearly as sterling as their WHIP counterparts. Faedo has two plus pitches in his fastball and slider and will be more likely to keep the ball in the yard going forward. But he'll also start issuing walks, meaning his future performance is likely somewhere between his low WHIP and high FIP.
Will Brendan McKay be able to handle two-way duty? How will the Rays handle him? So far, so good. And pretty carefully. McKay has put up some video-game numbers at the plate ... if you're a very patient video-game player. He's walked 11 times and struck out only two while going 7-for-16 with a double and six RBIs in the six games he's been a hitter. The 22-year-old left-hander also fanned four over two perfect innings in his 2018 pitching debut before coming down to earth a bit with two earned runs on two hits and a walk in three frames in his second outing. So, it's been a success generally. However, this has all come at Class A Bowling Green, hardly an aggressive assignment for a former college star. He also still hasn't cracked the 50-pitch mark in either of his two Hot Rods starts. The Rays are at least letting their No. 3 prospect play the field at first base, though not on days before or after he pitches. But as good as his numbers have been, there are a fair share of caveats.