Minor League Discussion & Boxes 4-17-2009

[Outshined_One]

Box Scores

 

Iowa won 8-3 Box Score

 

CF S. Fuld 1/5, R, RBI, 3B (2)

1B J. Fox 2/5, R, 2 RBI, HR (5), K

LF J. Dubois 2/4, BB, RBI, 2B (1), 2 K

RF B. Snyder 1/4, BB, R, 2 RBI, HR (2), CS (1)

SP R. Wells 5 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 6/2 K/BB, 5-4 GO-FO

RP G. Reinhard 3 scoreless, 3 H, 5/0 K/BB, 3-1 GO-FO

RP K. Hart 1 perfect, 3/0 K/BB

 

Tennessee won 9-0 Box Score

 

2B T. Thomas 0/4, K, CS (1), E (1, missed catch), HBP

DH R. Robnett 0/5, 2 K

SS D. Barney 2/4, BB, R, 2B (2), K, 2 E (throw, throw)

LF T. Wright 1/2, 2 BB, 2 R

CF B. Guyer 0/2, BB, 3 R, RBI

C W. Castillo 1/4, 3 RBI, 2B (1), K

SP C. Coleman 7 scoreless, 3 H, 4/1 K/BB, 6-10 GO-FO

RP J. Gaub 1 scoreless, 3/1 K/BB

RP J. Ruhlman 1 perfect, 0-3 GO-FO

 

Daytona won 5-1 Box Score

 

2B N. Samson 1/3, BB, CS (3)

DH T. Colvin 1/3, BB, R

RF D. Johnston 1/3, BB, R, K

3B M. Smith 1/3, BB, 2 RBI, K

CF D. Rundle 2/4, R, RBI, 2B (2), 2 K

SS S. Castro 0/4

SP D. McDaniel 5.1 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 2/2 K/BB, WP, HBP, 10-4 GO-FO

 

Peoria lost 4-2 Box Score

 

DH J. Harrison 2/4, RBI, 3B (1), K, CS (4)

1B R. Ridling 0/3, BB, 2 K

RF N. Perez 1/4, K

3B J. Vitters 1/3, K, HBP

C M. Brenly 2/3, BB, R, E (1, throw)

LF K. Burke 1/4, RBI, 2B (2), K

SS J. Lake 0/3, 2 K

PH R. Flaherty 0/0, BB

SP C. Archer 5 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 3/1 K/BB, 2 HBP, 8-4 GO-FO

RP A. Cabrera 2.1 IP, 1 H, 3 ER, 1/3 K/BB, HR, 1-5 GO-FO

RP M. Perconte .2 scoreless, 1 H, 1/0 K/BB, 0-1 GO-FO

 

OVERALL: 3-1

[Guest]

Probable Starters

 

Iowa: RHP Randy Wells (0-0, 3.60 ERA, 5 IP, 2 K/0 BB)

Tennessee: RHP Casey Coleman (1-0, 1.80 ERA, 5 IP, 6 K/1 BB)

Daytona: RHP Dan McDaniel (1-0, 0.00 ERA, 6 IP, 3 K/1 BB)

Peoria: RHP Chris Archer (0-0, 0.00 ERA, 3 IP, 5 K/4 BB)

[Guest]

Coleman with 3 scoreless for Tennessee (2 H, 1 BB, 4 K).

 

McDaniel has given up 1 run through 3 (1 H, 1 BB, 1 K).

 

Hopefully Archer displays some better command this time out.

 

I really like having these 3 pitch on the same day. :)

[Little Slide Rooter]

Jake Fox 2-4 with yet another home run.

[Cynosure]

Jake Fox 2-4 with yet another home run.

 

What do his season stats look like?

[Guest]

Jake Fox 2-4 with yet another home run.

 

What do his season stats look like?

 

Back of envelope calculations say: 36 AB - .500/.558/1.083/1.641 - 4 BB, 8 K

[Cynosure]

Jake Fox 2-4 with yet another home run.

 

What do his season stats look like?

 

Back of envelope calculations say: 36 AB - .500/.558/1.083/1.641 - 4 BB, 8 K

 

:shock: :shock: :shock:

 

Wow... see ya in September, kid.

[Little Slide Rooter]

Jake Fox 2-4 with yet another home run.

 

What do his season stats look like?

 

Back of envelope calculations say: 36 AB - .500/.558/1.083/1.641 - 4 BB, 8 K

 

:shock: :shock: :shock:

 

Wow... see ya in September, kid.

 

Hes leading the PCL in OPS, home runs and RBI

 

Or we could bring him up now and kick deadweight Gathright to the curb.

Edited April 18, 2009 by Little Slide Rooter

[Guest]

Casey Coleman with another stellar outing - 7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K on 76 pitches. His season ERA is 0.75.

 

Dan McDaniel keeps his ERA below 1 too (0.79) with a 1-hitter: 5.1 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 10 GO-4 FO.

 

And Chris Archer doesn't walk a million people this time out: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 8 GO-4 FO. ERA up to 1.13.

[CubColtPacer]

Wow. Coleman, McDaniel, and Archer all with great outings other than the low strikeout totals. The Cubs drafting and trading for some interesting pitchers in the last 2 years looks to be finally paying off.

 

Colvin drew his 8th walk tonight with 25 AB's. He had 10 walks in 245 AB's in Daytona in 07. He unfortunately though just got his average back to .200 with a 1 for 3 night tonight. His BABIP is only .250 to this point of the season.

[Guest]

Vitters went 1/3 with another single, a HBP and a K. - 22 AB: .364/.417/.364. Get an extra base hit, Josh!

 

Egads, looks like Archer hit two guys. That puts a bit of damper on his 1 walk game.

[Guest]

Wow. Coleman, McDaniel, and Archer all with great outings other than the low strikeout totals. The Cubs drafting and trading for some interesting pitchers in the last 2 years looks to be finally paying off.

 

Colvin drew his 8th walk tonight with 25 AB's. He had 10 walks in 245 AB's in Daytona in 07. He unfortunately though just got his average back to .200 with a 1 for 3 night tonight. His BABIP is only .250 to this point of the season.

 

Good to see you posting more in the minors, I love your posts elsewhere.

 

I'm surprised about McDaniel's K-rate. He had 48 Ks in 34.2 innings last year (and 18 walks). Only 5 K and 3 BB in 11.1 IP this season. His sinker is still working though and that helps alleviate K-rate concerns (2.22 GO-AO this year, 2.18 last).

[CubColtPacer]

Wow. Coleman, McDaniel, and Archer all with great outings other than the low strikeout totals. The Cubs drafting and trading for some interesting pitchers in the last 2 years looks to be finally paying off.

 

Colvin drew his 8th walk tonight with 25 AB's. He had 10 walks in 245 AB's in Daytona in 07. He unfortunately though just got his average back to .200 with a 1 for 3 night tonight. His BABIP is only .250 to this point of the season.

 

Good to see you posting more in the minors, I love your posts elsewhere.

 

I'm surprised about McDaniel's K-rate. He had 48 Ks in 34.2 innings last year (and 18 walks). Only 5 K and 3 BB in 11.1 IP this season. His sinker is still working though and that helps alleviate K-rate concerns (2.22 GO-AO this year, 2.18 last).

 

Thanks for the kind words. I couldn't venture into the minor league forum very much without you and the other wonderful people in here around to help me keep everyone straight. :D

 

I know in his first start that McDaniel was throwing a heavier dose of sinkers than usual. Hitters were not going into deep counts regularly with him. The Cubs may be working with him to not rely so much on the curveball which generates lots of strikeouts but also is the hardest pitch of his to control for strikes. Using the sinker more also can mean that the changeup will not need to be developed quite as much as a 3rd pitch which has been one of the big hangups with McDaniel. Plus, the decreased velocity of his fastball (and probably decreased movement as well) due to him starting instead of relieving might be causing more contact and less deep counts that cause the strikeouts and walks to pile up.

 

As for Coleman, was there a reason for his struggles in college last year? It's always surprising to see somebody improve in almost every category from their numbers in the Atlantic Sun conference. The biggest key for Coleman has been in halving his walk rate. If that can stay down, his acceptable strikeout rates and home run rates should make him a capable major league arm pretty quickly.

 

I'm not getting excited for Archer quite yet. From his history, it looks like it will be a roller coaster ride with him. He'll probably only be able to be properly evaluated when a large part of the season is done to see if his control has truly improved or not.

[Guest]

As for Coleman, was there a reason for his struggles in college last year? It's always surprising to see somebody improve in almost every category from their numbers in the Atlantic Sun conference. The biggest key for Coleman has been in halving his walk rate. If that can stay down, his acceptable strikeout rates and home run rates should make him a capable major league arm pretty quickly.

 

The reason that was given was that he was a two-way player (just like Jay Jackson) so he couldn't concentrate on his pitching. Now that he's focusing on his pitching, things appear to be improving.

 

I'm not getting excited for Archer quite yet. From his history, it looks like it will be a roller coaster ride with him. He'll probably only be able to be properly evaluated when a large part of the season is done to see if his control has truly improved or not.

 

While I agree with you, I can't help but get overexcited over guys who have good stuff but struggle control. I just hope they can get over their control problems; their high quality stuff gives them more leeway.

[Outshined_One]

I know in his first start that McDaniel was throwing a heavier dose of sinkers than usual. Hitters were not going into deep counts regularly with him. The Cubs may be working with him to not rely so much on the curveball which generates lots of strikeouts but also is the hardest pitch of his to control for strikes. Using the sinker more also can mean that the changeup will not need to be developed quite as much as a 3rd pitch which has been one of the big hangups with McDaniel. Plus, the decreased velocity of his fastball (and probably decreased movement as well) due to him starting instead of relieving might be causing more contact and less deep counts that cause the strikeouts and walks to pile up.

 

This isn't very surprising, given the Cubs' MO with other prospects. I know they tend to ask prospects to temporarily scrap certain pitches so that the pitchers can focus on honing their other pitches. Off the top of my head, Gallagher was asked to put his slider (apparently his best pitch) on hiatus for awhile so that he could work on his FB/Curve/Change. If McDaniel was asked to cut back on his curveball so he could develop his FB/Change, then, with some luck, he'll have longer outings and become a better overall pitcher for it.

[craig]

Repeating/adding list of reasons why McD's K's would be down:

1. Starting, not throwing quite as hard.

2. Was throwing 50-50 fastballs/sliders, now he's adjusted that to 70-20-10 fastball-slider-change

3. A+ hitters put the fastball into play before he gets to the 2-strike K-counts. Inferior NWL hitters would miss or foul, leading to more 2-strike counts without which K's don't occur.

4. He's obviously gone heavily with the sinker. Last year he got a lot of his K's on 4-seam fastball.

 

I would guess that both answers 4 and 2 are involved. You don't get K's on 2-seam sinkers, you get them on breaking balls and high fastballs. So if you cut back on both of those, you cut back on K's. And the obvious also factors in: you don't get strike 3 without getting strike 2 first. If the sinker is working so well that you can pound the strike-zone with effective 2-seamers that get groundouts, you may buzz through an inning without ever reaching a 2-strike count.

 

The most common pitch that they push kids to work on is the change, since few kids begin with an excellent change and it's entirely normal for a young prospect to have a good fastball and a promising breaking pitch but to have never needed or developed a major-league changeup in amateur ball. That's almost certainly the case for McD.

 

He was supposedly a 2-pitch guy, just fastball/slider. (Some call it slider, some curve, but it's not like he throws two different ones.) But maybe that was really 3 pitch: slider + 4-seam + 2-seam.

 

Normally integrating a change results in more walks and higher pitch counts, not less. So adding the change certainly doesn't explain why he's throwing less pitches. And given that he has only one breaking pitch, it's certainly not that they are having him not throw it. reduce it possibly, but not shelve it for the year.

 

Some guys had three breaking pitches (slider, and/or curve, and/or splitter), so they'd ask them to focus on one (Pawelek, Ryu, Sisco all come to mind.) In McD's case, I think it's more a case of adding (change) than reducing the range of pitches that he uses. Even if he's reducing the actual number of sliders.

[craig]

...

As for Coleman, was there a reason for his struggles in college last year? It's always surprising to see somebody improve in almost every category from their numbers in the Atlantic Sun conference. The biggest key for Coleman has been in halving his walk rate. If that can stay down, his acceptable strikeout rates and home run rates should make him a capable major league arm pretty quickly....

 

Good question. I went back and looked at his Gulf Coast website page for last year. It's true that he has played a lot of 2B/SS throughout his college career. But it's not like he hadn't pitched before. He was 1st-team all-state as a pitcher in HS (class 5A in Florida, whatever that means. But his school averages over 100 students per grade, so it's not total small-school competiton.) He pitched some as a closer as a Freshman, leading Gulf Coast in saves and with an ERA below 3. He pitched 70 IP as a junior, 62 as a soph; so it's not like he just started pitching. His ERA's were 4.34 and 4.11, or something like that. But he K'd more as a soph in fewer innings. So I'd guess he underperformed to some degree as a junior. So I think to some degree perhaps we got lucky and were able to draft him in a buy-low mode.

It is interesting: he has about as many IP as a pro as he did as a junior (67pro, 70 junior). But his pro K/BB is 54K/15BB/67IP, versus junior 58K/35BB/70IP. His K-rate is about the same, but his walk rate is much reduced. Clearly a guy with 35BB/70IP in small conference college isn't likely to be getting in 7 innings on 74 pitches in AA the next year. Pretty remarkable. His walk rates were lower as fresh/soph than as junior, so that appeared to be a down spring for him control-wise. Or not: I think his school was not D1 fresh/soph, and they just joined D1 last year. So probably the worsened walk-rate reflected facing better opposition? In either case, he's gone within 12 months from a 35BB/70IP guy in small D1 conference (not impressive walk control) to a guy who's performing as a low-walk control pitcher.

 

 

Several thoughts:

1. I think his low round may be significantly impacted by signability, not entirely by how scouts saw his stuff. I believe he said that he hadn't expected to sign and hadn't planned to sign with a less than $100K offer. Cal can probably detail that better. But I suspect the Cub scouts saw enough stuff to justify 5th/6th round kind of cash, to superslot. Perhaps others would have been taking him in rounds 7-10 if they'd expected him to sign for slot.

 

2. You know this much better. But college stats with aluminum bats and the sometimes extremely short outfield walls can sometimes be misleading.

 

3. He's young. He's 21 and will remain 21 for most of the season. A 21-year-old in AA, that's pretty good. And a lot of 21-year-olds would be juniors now. So if last year had been his sophomore year and he was elevating his game this year as a junior, that wouldn't be all that unusual. A little stronger, a little faster, a little more consistent, a little better control, that kind of improvement happens often.

 

4. I have the impression that his fastball is improved. In the scouting report at draft it mentioned him having touched 94, which looked promising; but the impression I had was that was a max, and he probably was more an 88-91 guy in normal mode. I seem to recall last summer a Peoria report that also suggested that he has mostly around 88-90. The impression I got from camp this spring was that he was more regularly resting 90 or better. I'd be surprised if that weren't true. I doubt they'd have bumped him up to AA if he looked like a finesse guy with a sub-par fastball. I don't think you zip through 12 innings in AA with as few pitches and walks as Coleman has used in these first two starts unless you've got a pretty usable fastball.

 

5. A lot of $100-K signing bonus type pitchers who have a chance: if they add several more mph; if their slider gets more consistent and sharper; if their fastball command gets better; if they can improve their change some. For most, some of those ifs don't come through. For the moment, it looks as if most of them might be coming true for Coleman. We'll see if they stay true.

 

...I'm not getting excited for Archer quite yet. From his history, it looks like it will be a roller coaster ride with him. He'll probably only be able to be properly evaluated when a large part of the season is done to see if his control has truly improved or not.

 

I agree, I'm rather a control prioritizer. Which is why I'm pretty interested in Coleman and Shafer, either though neither probably has exceptional stuff. It's rare for guys as wild as Archer to ever have the control needed to be consistent big-leaguer assets. But, it's equally true that there are plenty of good-stuff big-leaguers who have useful careers without all that special of control. Archer's stuff seems pretty hard to hit. He won't need the control that Coleman or Shafer will to get a shot. He's a teenager. If he can show that his stuff is very hard to hit, that he has legit big-league stuff, I'll remain hopeful for a while that in time he'll perhaps improve his control enough to become useful. Sometimes wild guys do end up learning to harness good stuff. Hopefully he'll be one of them.

[craig]

From a BleacherBums poster who watched Tennessee last night, and has watched tons of AA games over recent years;

 

"Casey Coleman looked real strong last night... His fastball was 91-93 but he has a damn good slider that's 85-87."

 

That sounds like legit stuff.

[Guest]

1. I think his low round may be significantly impacted by signability, not entirely by how scouts saw his stuff. I believe he said that he hadn't expected to sign and hadn't planned to sign with a less than $100K offer. Cal can probably detail that better. But I suspect the Cub scouts saw enough stuff to justify 5th/6th round kind of cash, to superslot. Perhaps others would have been taking him in rounds 7-10 if they'd expected him to sign for slot.

 

You're right on his quote. Coleman had said he wasn't planning on signing without a $100,000+ bonus but he didn't get that. I don't know what he did get but it was less than $100,000 but more than what a 15th rounder would get:

 

While he didn’t hit his signing goal of $100,000, he said “It’s a lot better money than 15th rounders get. I didn’t see going into the summer as helping.”

 

I think it's important to note that two-way players aren't able to concentrate on just pitching like they can once they turn pro. If you're a quick learner, that can help you make immense improvement immediately.

[craig]

From another bleacherbums poster who attended Ascanio's game at Albuquerque. This poster doesn't post often, so I don't have any filter whether he gushes up everybody or whether he disses anybody who isn't absolutely dominant. But this is what he said about Ascanio, regarding the game in which he had 4-3-0-0-1-4, 1 HBP, 54P-34strikes, and 7/1 GO/AO. (A line that I thought looked pretty impressive, especially in Albququerque which is often a homer heaven.)

 

"Ascanio was getting hit pretty hard though. His FB was hitting 94 (on a slow gun), but the 'Topes weren't fooled. He threw some sort of offspeed pitch, but not very often and without much sucess. In my opinion, he won't survive in the bigs without a solid offspeed pitch. Think of Farnsworth."

 

Not sure exactly what to make of that. It seems negative. But if I thought he had Farnsworth stuff, that isn't exactly a washout. Not sure two singles, a double, and one flyout sound like he was getting hit all that hard, either, but perhaps the groundouts were all rockets, too. The 94 on a slow gun sounds good, I think. Doesn't really seem to jive with the report that Ascanio, when he's good, has his slider as his signature pitch. Again, not to doubt the poster, but I think sometimes an amateur watcher can distinguish a slider from a fastball when the hitter lets it go; but sometimes slider is hard to distinguish from fastball, so sliders resulting in ground outs seem like they are just down fastballs; or sliders that don't break a lot just seem like somewhat low-velocity fastballs?

[Guest]

From a BleacherBums poster who watched Tennessee last night, and has watched tons of AA games over recent years;

 

"Casey Coleman looked real strong last night... His fastball was 91-93 but he has a damn good slider that's 85-87."

 

That sounds like legit stuff.

 

Thanks for that, Craig. Sounds superb.

[craig]

Yeah, that does sound awfully good.

 

Will be interesting to see what jackson shows up tonight.

 

But the Coleman case, and the good jackson before his bombardment last start, kind of remind me of how the drafting and development of pitchers is so unpredictable. Last year entering the draft, I recall the buzz being that the draft was way below average for pitchers. And often to read the draft board, if they draft many college players who aren't already great, their is complaint that they aren't taking any high-ceiling guys. As if a college pitcher who gets past round three must not have enough arm to be any good. But here we see guys like Coleman, McDaniel, and jackson being taken in the mid-teens or round 8 who end up looking like they do have enough arm after all.

[Outshined_One]

From a BleacherBums poster who watched Tennessee last night, and has watched tons of AA games over recent years;

 

"Casey Coleman looked real strong last night... His fastball was 91-93 but he has a damn good slider that's 85-87."

 

That sounds like legit stuff.

 

Thanks for that, Craig. Sounds superb.

 

That's a bit better than when I saw him last season (he was mostly 88-90). His breaking stuff was really nice and he had a terrific presence on the mound. If he can keep his FB at 91-93, he'll shoot up my list.