Minor League Discussion & Boxes 7-16-11

[Guest]

Word has it, Rohan to Daytona, Geiger to Peoria.

 

After such a hot start, it seems a little odd to me to promote Geiger after a stretch that has seen him go 0-9 with 5 K's. I know the sample size is small, but that's 1/3 of his K's for the season in the last 2 games. Good luck to him in Peoria, I look forward to seeing how he handles more advanced pitching. He and Easterling along with some of the recent pitching promotions make Peoria an interesting team to watch now.

[BearClaw]

Glad Rohan moved, would like to see him in TENN later on.

 

Geiger promotion is fine. Sample size should really mean about 250 plate appearances.

 

Hitters don't kneejerk during a rough stretch, why should fans!

 

The Peoria corner OF's Giansanti and Klafczynski may have the 2 best throwing hoses in the system.

[craig]

Word has it, Rohan to Daytona, Geiger to Peoria.

 

After such a hot start, it seems a little odd to me to promote Geiger after a stretch that has seen him go 0-9 with 5 K's. I know the sample size is small, but that's 1/3 of his K's for the season in the last 2 games. Good luck to him in Peoria, I look forward to seeing how he handles more advanced pitching. He and Easterling along with some of the recent pitching promotions make Peoria an interesting team to watch now.

 

The promotion decisions only sometimes link tightly with recent performance. If anything, it seems the norm for the Cubs to promote guys who are in slumps, mini-slumps or perhaps larger. If it's based on player performance, I think the machinery of decision-making goes more slowly. Management notices a guy is hot, takes some time to think about promoting or processing that through and who else will move, and by the time they do it the guy has rolled off of his hot streak. (As happens to all hitters.)

 

More importantly, during the draft-signing summer, it's new guys in who domino others. No need to move Geiger before. But with DeVoss at 2B, that dominoed Amaya to 3B last night and Geiger to 1B. I'd rather see Geiger playing 3rd at Peoria and continuing to work on 3B than to have .377 Amaya benched, or to have Geiger playing 1B at Mesa. So basically I think this is more about DeVoss than about Geiger.

[craig]

Easterling just crushed a 2 run Homer in his 3rd at bat for Peoria to tie the game. It was smashed

 

Keener, thanks. Would be interesting if he had some power, which I don't think he manifested in college.

 

That's a good observation.

 

Any thoughts from his 3 strikeouts? Look bad? overswinging? Fishing at junk? (I think he was a low-walk-high-K kid in college, so I assume he's a hacker who might not see breaking balls well...) Did it look like his knees buckled pretty easily on anything offspeed?

 

Perhaps in a first game in full-season, he was swinging harder, both for the HR and the K's. We'll see how the K's go as the summer goes on.

[Outshined_One]

Rohan to Daytona and Geiger to Peoria confirmed.

 

Loosen demoted from Tennessee to Peoria.

[BearClaw]

Geiger will probably hang at 3B, Jones at 1B is absolutely mashing as even his outs are very LOUD, he may get moved and Hoilman added at some point.

 

Easterling and the 3K's not worried as he probably was excited and pumped with adrenalin, which is normal.

 

The system seems loaded with typically profiled centerfield types such as Na, Chen, Giansanti, Silva(working at 2B again), Easterling, even Golden originally, Zapata and DeVoss(working at 2B).

[Keener98]

Easterling just crushed a 2 run Homer in his 3rd at bat for Peoria to tie the game. It was smashed

 

Keener, thanks. Would be interesting if he had some power, which I don't think he manifested in college.

 

That's a good observation.

 

Any thoughts from his 3 strikeouts? Look bad? overswinging? Fishing at junk? (I think he was a low-walk-high-K kid in college, so I assume he's a hacker who might not see breaking balls well...) Did it look like his knees buckled pretty easily on anything offspeed?

 

Perhaps in a first game in full-season, he was swinging harder, both for the HR and the K's. We'll see how the K's go as the summer goes on.

 

No problem Craig. As for Easterling, in his 1st AB, he attempted a bunt on the 1st pitch, should have pulled the bat back as the pitch was nowhere near the zone, but didn't and missed. 2nd pitch had a fastball blown right past him, and struck out looking(I think, but he may have swung) on an offspeed pitch that he didnt seem to pick up well at all. Basically his 1st AB was pretty ugly. 2nd AB I believe he struck out again, this time on another offspeed pitch. His 1st 2 AB's to me he seemed nervous and jumpy. The Fort Wayne pitcher was dealing the entire game, as the Chiefs only had 1 hard hit ball(Jones deep fly ball to straight away CF caught with the OF'ers back against the 400FT sign). The 3rd AB for Easterling came in the 7th. Finally this AB he looked more relaxed. Took a few pitches for balls and wasnt "jumpy" in the box. The home run was a missile off his bat that as soon as it was hit you knew it was gone. Came on a fastball I believe, and he turned on it and hit it over the LF wall by plenty. The HR seemed to relax him a little bit as he had his best at bats of the night following it. He walked in his next AB after going down 0-2. This was probably his most impressive AB of the night. Got down 0-2 and the fouled some really good pitches off, then managed to work back to a 3-2 count and took a high inside pitch for ball 4. He had an infield single in his last Ab, hitting a shot deep into the hole at SS and legging it out.

 

Also I dont know know what the reports say about his defense, but he looked really smooth out there. Chased a few balls down in the gap that I didnt think he had a chance at, and also had a couple that he was able to cut off before going to the wall. He had a couple chances to show off his arm, that to be honest, was pretty impressive. Pop fly to almost the warning track with runners on 1st and 3rd, did a really good job setting up under it, and unleashed a nice straight throw right to the 2nd basemean on a line, keeping the runner at 1st. Also on a stolen base, Gibbs overthrew the bag, Easterling was there backing up, and about had the runner at 3rd after picking up the errant throw.

 

Overall, a pretty good debut I thought. He definitely looks to be "in shape". Has a football players look to his build.

 

EDIT: I think Im forgetting a strike out, but honestly, I dont remember that at bat now. Didnt get home till midnight after the 13 innings sorry.

[Guest]

The Peoria corner OF's Giansanti and Klafczynski may have the 2 best throwing hoses in the system.

 

Jae-Hoon Ha.

[craig]

Thanks for detailed observations, keener, that's really nice and appreciated. If his range is good, his defense is good, his arm is good, his speed is good, and his power is good, that's a lot of good stuff.

 

As with many guys, it may end up coming down to the unlikely ability to react to breaking balls and the speed/movement of pro pitching. If he can hit, sounds like a winner.

 

Kind of a likable situation. As a fan mostly checking box scores, I have no idea if a guy has no range, a rubber-band arm, and is a dizz-brain. But I can pretty easily track the box scores to see if he's getting hits, walks, K's, and power. So if we get good news on the non-hitting stuff, and then if a guy surprised and actually could hit besides, then I'd know he's a guy to watch.