The Arizona Fall League’s penultimate week belonged to two standouts who made their case in very different ways.
On Tuesday, the league named Royals prospect Zion Rose its Hitter of the Week and Marlins right-hander Alex Williams its Pitcher of the Week for performances from Nov. 2-6. Rose brought the thunder at the plate, while Williams carved up hitters in a way the circuit hasn’t seen before.
Rose led the AFL with an .857 slugging percentage, a 1.457 OPS and seven RBIs over the week. The Royals’ No. 6 prospect also finished second in the league with six stolen bases, six runs scored and three extra-base hits, including a homer, a triple and a double.
His .600 on-base percentage ranked third, while his 6-for-14 showing gave him four hits for the week, tied for fourth most. He also posted a .429 batting average, which ranked fifth.
His biggest day came Monday, when he reached base four times, drove in four runs and scored three. Rose added a pair of hits, one of them a two-run homer, drew two walks and swiped three bags. He logged multihit games in three of his four appearances last week.
The 21-year-old has been just as productive overall in the desert. The No. 6 overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft is batting .328/.494/.517 in 15 games with 16 RBIs and 14 stolen bases.
Williams’ week was defined by one dominant outing on Wednesday. The 6-foot-3, 220-pound right-hander struck out 10 over four one-hit, scoreless innings for the Desert Dogs, becoming just the 10th pitcher in the Arizona Fall League since 2005 to reach double-digit strikeouts in a game.
He did it with remarkable efficiency, needing only 14 plate appearances to get there. That makes him the quickest pitcher in Fall League history to hit the 10-strikeout mark.
Williams’ 10 strikeouts matched his career high, which he set earlier this year on April 22 for Double-A Pensacola. The total is one shy of the Fall League single-game strikeout record since at least 2005, and it marked the first time a pitcher in the desert circuit had reached 10 or more strikeouts since Davis Daniel in 2023.
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