He's not in the MILB Phillies top 30, but he was a 5th rd pick in 2018, so he's not someone coming out of LF either.
He had a so-so first full season at Clearwater in 2019, at 22 years old.
Two years later, he's probably physical mature and ready, but he also has a .381 BABIP, slightly inflating his results (you'd expect a BABIP over .300 with his speed and power).
Winkleman before the 2019 season:
It is a bit surprising in retrospect that Vierling did not make Baseball America’s top 500 draft prospects. He hit very well at a big conference school (Notre Dame), and he will show 5 tools and a possibility of staying up the middle defensively. The big glaring weakness on his resume was a poor track record with wood bats, especially a .182/.245/.273 line in the Cape Cod League in the summer of 2017. After signing, Vierling blitzed through Williamsport, and then had a poor July in Lakewood, with 2 walks to 21 strikeouts in 24 games. He was absolutely on fire down the stretch, hitting .323/.393/.570 in the last 26 regular season games, with a more reasonable 8 walks to 17 strikeouts. Vierling can player center field right now, but he is probably destined for an outfield corner. He was a pitcher in college, but will just hit in the pros, and his arm does translate as plus in the outfield. He has solid raw power and showed the ability to actualize it during his August hot streak. The big question is his hit tool. He showed in college that he could hit and keep his walks and strikeouts in a good place, a feat that he repeated at the end of the South Atlantic League season. However, his July coupled with his past wood bat experiences lend a lot of hesitancy to saying his problems are fixed. He will need to show the hit tool against upper level pitchers before there is a lot of confidence in it going forward. He will need to have the hit tool to succeed, because moving to an outfield corner puts a lot of pressure on his bat to provide the impact in his profile. If he can show that he can hit, he will rise quickly up lists during the season.
The "pitcher in college" is a bit exaggerated, he was long relief and not good at it, but played full time in the outfield his last two college seasons. However, it may explain his struggles as a freshman.
Problem is he's probably due for a promotion to AAA, but with Kingery, Haseley, Moniak and Randolph already there, he's going to stay in Reading for the time being.
