Young for the level at Double-A last season, O’Neill continues that trend as he dives into Triple-A Tacoma this year. He is off to a slow start, and he had a rough go with the swing and miss last week, as he struck out nine times in 27 at-bats at one point. When he has put the bat on the ball, however, he has done damage, with eight extra-base hits, including three home runs. But like we have mentioned before with O’Neill, the big question for him is will he be a guy who makes enough contact to have the big power turn his profile into an above-average everyday contributor, or will the strikeouts drive him into a one-true-outcome type of player.

He likely will always have stretches like he did last week, where at-bats seem to slip away from him and he gets easy to pitch to, ultimately eating into his value in the on-base department. The key for him is going to be how quickly he can pull himself out of those funks and get back to putting together good at-bats. It’s still early in the season, and we are talking about a kid that is just short of 22 years old, but he will need to get more comfortable hitting with two strikes and limit the chase mode that can render his power useless. If he can start to show some ability to battle back after going down 0-2 and 1-2, not only does he increase his chances to get a mistake to hammer, but the act of simply seeing more pitches is an aspect that makes his at-bats a little bit higher stress for opposing pitchers.