Sox prospect Kavadas has a lot of Kyle Schwarber in his game

Sep. 28—Kyle Schwarber and Niko Kavadas have a lot in common. They're both stocky, midwestern-born sluggers who played college baseball in the state of Indiana and who boast a unique combination of power and plate discipline.

They also joined the Red Sox organization right around the same time, with Kavadas arriving in mid-July of 2021 as a sixth-round pick out of Notre Dame and Schwarber coming a few weeks later at the trade deadline.

Schwarber's stay in Boston wound up being short, but in his first full season of professional baseball Kavadas has shown signs that over the long haul he could become, if not a similarly dominant power threat, at least one who can provide a similar profile for the Red Sox.

Kavadas was honored at Fenway Park on Monday as the organization's Minor League Offensive Player of the Year, capping off a brilliant season in which he was twice promoted and finished with 26 home runs and 86 RBI in 120 games split between Low-A Salem, High-A Greenville and Double-A Portland.

The 23-year-old left-handed first baseman also boasted an impressive .443 on-base percentage thanks in large part to his 102 walks. Kavadas said he takes particular pride in that, noting that one of his main goals since college has been to try and maintain as close to a one-to-one walk-to-strikeout rate as possible.

"That's always a goal for me because it could be really easy to sit here and chase home runs and swing for the fences all day long," Kavadas said. "So that's a way I try and pull myself in and discipline myself, and I think it's been a really good goal for me."

Kavadas said exercising discipline helps him hit for power as well, because when you don't chase outside the zone the pitchers have come to you. That was something he learned from watching Schwarber, who he used to watch play at Indiana University as a teenager and who has served as an inspiration ever since given all of their similarities.

"That's been a guy I've always modeled my game after," Kavadas said.

To put it into perspective, hitting 25 home runs while also drawing 100 or more walks in a season is quite rare at any level. Kavadas is the only player across the minors to do it this season so far, and only two players will top both marks in the big leagues, Juan Soto (26 home runs, 131 walks) and Aaron Judge (60, 101). No other big leaguers even have 25 home runs and 80 walks, though Schwarber is in the next tier with 42 homers and 78 walks.

That Kavadas is doing it in his first season of professional baseball is also noteworthy. Last year he only played 15 games spread across the Florida Complex League and Salem, but this year he dominated pitchers in both Salem (1.062 OPS) and Greenville (1.064 OPS) before helping Portland on its run to the playoffs.

"It was good. Each jump brought with it new challenges and with the jump to Portland the biggest adjustment was the command was just a little bit better," Kavadas said. "Every pitch was competitive and there were less balls down the middle, so that's something to gameplan for next year."

Though the Sea Dogs were eliminated in the Eastern League playoffs last week, Kavadas' season isn't over yet. After enjoying the awards ceremony in Boston on Monday, Kavadas will fly home to pack and then immediately head out west on Thursday to take part in the Arizona Fall League.

"I'm excited," he said. "Six weeks out there, I've never really spent a whole lot of time in Arizona so I'm interested to see how the ball flies out in the thin air."

Email: mcerullo@northofboston.com.

Twitter: @MacCerullo.