Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 4-28-16

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Box Scores:

 

Iowa won 10-5 Box Score

 

C W. Contreras 0/1, 2 R, RBI, 4 BB

1B D. Vogelbach 1/4, 2 RBI, BB

CF A. Almora 3/5, R, HR (3), 3 RBI, SB (2)

2B A. Alcántara 0/4, R, BB, 2 K, SB (5)

SS M. Kawasaki 1/3, RBI, BB, K, SB (1)

SP R. Williams 5.2 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 2 bb, 4 k, 9-2 GO-FO, 96-61 pitches-strikes

RP C. Edwards Jr 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, 0-2 GO-FO

RP S. Patton 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K, 0-1 GO-FO

 

Tennessee won 6-5 Box Score

 

CF J. Hannemann 2/5, 2 R, HR (4), RBI, K

2B C. Young 2/5, R, RBI

3B J. Candelario 0/3, 2 BB, K

C V. Caratini 1/3, R, BB, K

RF B. McKinney 2/4, 2 RBI

LF M. Zagunis 0/4

SP R. Zastryzny 6 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 6-5 GO-FO, 78-47 pitches-strikes

RP D. Garner 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R< 0 BB, 0 K, 1-1 GO-FO

 

Myrtle Beach PPD - Rain

 

South Bend won game one 11-2 (7 innings) Box Score

 

DH PJ Higgins 2/3, HBP

CF D. Dewees 1/3, RBI, E (2, fielding)

LF E. Martinez 0/3, K

3B J. Hodges 1/3, E (1, missed catch)

1B T. Alamo 1/3, RBI, K

SP J. Steele 1.2 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 0-3 GO-FO, 64-41 pitches-strikes

 

South Bend lost game two 3-0 (7 innings) Box Score

 

C PJ Higgins 1/3, K

CF D. Dewees 0/3, K

DH E. Jimenez 1/3, 2B (5)

RF E. Martinez 0/3, K

1B M. Rose 1/3, 2B (1)

3B J. Hodges 1/3, 2B (1), 2 K

SS B. Flete 1/3, K

SP R. Kellogg 6 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, 1 HR, 1-3 GO-FO, 85-55 pitches-strikes, CG

[TruffleShuffle]

justin steele seems alarmingly hittable so far this year.

[craig]

I doubt getting killed in the 1st and 2nd innings is really a function of his size or getting tired. Will be interesting to read what Duke has to say about him.

 

That PJ Higgins cat is trying to do the Chesny Young bit, except he's a catcher. He's got another couple of hits, and his OBP is well into the high .400's now.

 

Hanneman with his 4th HR already, and a couple of hits. I believe his OPS is now up around or over .800, and that's despite having a lousy BABIP. His BB/K ratio is way better thus far. That would be so awesome if he turned into a real thing.

[craig]

...Both of those would fact into present strength, which - despite being the same age - probably is below that of other first timers like Sands. From what I saw last summer, Steele stayed up in the zone with his fastball to set up his breaking ball. He tended to fade in velocty in the 3-5 inning range even in short season ball. It's possible that strategy with his current fastball is less effective in full season ball.

 

Yeah, if he's got a bad fastball and throws high bad fastballs, that's a problem. If he's not fast enough, that's a problem. Those could be two show-stopper problems for him, if he's both slow and high.

 

Still, hard to imagine he's as slow as Kellog or Sands. If he's just an 88-90 soft-toss finesse guy like Sands, Steele's obviously not much of a prospect.

 

O well, you win some, you lose some.

[TruffleShuffle]

i feel like every time i look at a box score hannemann went 3-4 with an extra base hit and at least one stolen base, but then he's hitting .230. apparently this means that i never look at the tennessee box scores when he goes 0-4.

[TruffleShuffle]

almora 3-5 with his third dong of the year. hitting .362.

 

willson contreras went hitless, which is okay because he walked four times.

 

carls edwards jr pitched a walkless, scoreless inning.

[ScrubMD]

I'm having fantasies of Almora as the CF Addison Russell.

[David]

almora slg is a thing

[craig]

This Almora bit hitting HR's, slugging .550+, OPSing .950+, OBP'ing at .400, is pretty fun. Very fun. Hope he can keep it up, wow.

 

Hanneman is up to .796 OPS, despite his low BABIP.

 

Ryan Kalish is going crazy for Iowa, as good as Contreras, Almora, and Vogelbach have been, Kalish has done better than any of them.

 

Tom, if Steele has less arm strength than Sands, who barely touches 90-91 only occasionally, then Steele isn't much of a prospect. Oh well, couldn't really expect to hit on all three of Sands/Steele/Cease. If Cease works out well, you're still beating the odds.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Ryan Kellogg looks a little like Dan Haren.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

I'll do a full write-up tomorrow. There was some good stuff; some not so good. I was disappointed, though, because Eloy didn't play the first game and only DH'd the second game. :(

 

Steele didn't look good, though. His defense didn't help him out any. But, it was still pretty bad. Kellogg did impress, though. He knows how to pitch. Neither had much in the way of velocity. Steele sat 88-91. Kellogg was mostly 87-89 and touched 90 occasionally. It looked like Kellog lost a little steam. He was 89-90 early. Then there was a lot of 87-88. But, he was able to get his velo back up a tick to 89-90 in the last inning. He looked great early and late, with a hiccup in the middle. I was happy to see him come back out and finish things off nicely, though.

 

As for the hitting, I liked what little I saw of Eloy. Dewees didn't get to do much. Hard to get a read on him. I liked P.J. Higgins quite a bit. Eddy Martinez... bad. Not impressed at all. Matt Rose seems like he should be a better hitter than he's shown. The rest of the guys... not much to see.

 

I'll go a little more in-depth tomorrow.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Keep slugging, Albert!

 

Great to see Hannemann off to a hot start. He's intriguing if he can keep the K's down like this.

[ScrubMD]

Keep slugging, Albert!

 

Great to see Hannemann off to a hot start. He's intriguing if he can keep the K's down like this.

 

Imagine if they both panned out and we had an outfield defense of Hannemann/Almora/Heyward...with Schwarber developing into a GG catcher.

[craig]

Thanks, Duke. Glad that Kellogg could nip 90 once in a while.

 

Tom, what's the difference between arm strength and velocity? I admit I don't quite understand the distinction. So, a guy can have a stronger arm but throw slower? How is that, and why does the stronger guy throw slower?

 

And what advantage does the stronger arm have if it doesn't result in being able to throw as fast? I'm guessing sustainability; maybe the stronger armed Kellogg-Sands can hold their 88 mph longer, whereas a faster guy will be lose his velocity after the pitches pile up? Does the extra arm strength for the slower guy have a harder breaking ball?

[UMFan83]

I can't believe I'm actually going into minor league threads each morning specifically to see how Almora's done. What a world we live in.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1st round picks in the Epstein era:

 

Almora - .950 OPS in AAA with plus CF D

Bryant - a baseball engine of death

Schwarber - 3 win HR hitter from the start, now part machine

Happ - 1.000 OPS in High-A as a 21 yo 2B

 

please turn down GM jobs forever, Jason McLeod

[squally1313]

Keep slugging, Albert!

 

Great to see Hannemann off to a hot start. He's intriguing if he can keep the K's down like this.

 

Imagine if they both panned out and we had an outfield defense of Hannemann/Almora/Heyward...with Schwarber developing into a GG catcher.

 

You're not wrong, and I know you're projecting a decent bit down the road, but it's funny that that scenario doesn't even factor in the best player in baseball so far this year.

[David]

1st round picks in the Epstein era:

 

Almora - .950 OPS in AAA with plus CF D

Bryant - a baseball engine of death

Schwarber - 3 win HR hitter from the start, now part machine

Happ - 1.000 OPS in High-A as a 21 yo 2B

 

please turn down GM jobs forever, Jason McLeod

 

devil's advocate (and i love this FO as much as anyone and we all know that you can easily screw up early round picks) - all of those guys were relatively early picks in the 1st round

 

i want some of these damn random 6th rounders to come out of nowhere and turn into real guys. i realize it's easier said than done with overslots being less of a thing than when they were finding guys in boston. just give me a dylan cease breakout this year or something. or can some random older dude like stephen bruno or hanneman become a cardinal-like thing?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1st round picks in the Epstein era:

 

Almora - .950 OPS in AAA with plus CF D

Bryant - a baseball engine of death

Schwarber - 3 win HR hitter from the start, now part machine

Happ - 1.000 OPS in High-A as a 21 yo 2B

 

please turn down GM jobs forever, Jason McLeod

 

devil's advocate (and i love this FO as much as anyone and we all know that you can easily screw up early round picks) - all of those guys were relatively early picks in the 1st round

 

i want some of these damn random 6th rounders to come out of nowhere and turn into real guys. i realize it's easier said than done with overslots being less of a thing than when they were finding guys in boston. just give me a dylan cease breakout this year or something. or can some random older dude like stephen bruno or hanneman become a cardinal-like thing?

 

I wasn't being overly serious, but even high in the draft, it's a remarkable hit rate. The Twins have had a very similar set of picks and haven't converted nearly as well, for example. The Pirates had 7 Top 10 picks in a 9 year span and came out of it with Paul Maholm and Pedro Alvarez(they also drafted Neil Walker and McCutchen at 11 in that span, but you get what I'm driving at).

 

I'd like to see some more surprises at the MLB level too though. I think Contreras is a good player development story, and there's some bench player candidates that have some promise. It'd be nice to get a pitcher to break out every now and then, that's the real negative on their Cubs track record.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

So the good news with Steele. It shouldn't have been that bad. The South Bend defense was horrible, and maybe things go a little differently if they didn't make so many mistakes. The second inning, in particular, was unremitting. He just couldn't get out of the inning. And I'm sure he was probably pretty upset about his fielders being unable to complete even the most basic of plays.

 

In the first, Daz Cameron was gunned out caught stealing, except the third baseman dropped the ball and Cameron scored. The lead-off hitter in the second lined a ball into the outfield and tried stretching it into a double. Martinez's throw beat him at second, but the second baseman dropped the ball. The next batter singled on a perfectly placed bunt. Steele, then, picked a guy off and they got him in a run-down. The base runner was dead to rights. And then on the toss from the first baseman to second, Flete just dropped the ball.

 

He should have been out of the inning, with minimal damage done. And suddenly the bases are loaded. And then came the bases clearing double. This really shouldn't have happened either. The fence in right is really short there. It was really a routine fly ball. But, it did get back to the fence. And the RF, Spignola, did the right thing. He went back and found the fence and camped out next to it. And then... he just misjudged it or something. It should have been a routine fly ball for him and he just missed it and it bounced off the bottom of the wall.

 

It was ugly. Quad Cities was also running all over the bases on them. This shouldn't have been a problem, as they should have ran into several outs. But, the defense couldn't execute even the most basic defensive plays. It was just a cornucopia of bad luck.

 

That being said, Steele didn't look good. He didn't have good command of his fastball. And his off-speed stuff didn't look sharp. He couldn't get his off-speed stuff over for strikes. And they weren't fooling anyone, either. His off-speed stuff just didn't look good at all. And, consequently, he had no confidence in it. He stuck mostly to his fastball. And he left it up quite a bit. And they hammered them when they were up. He gave up a lot of hard contact. Even if the defense was better, he wasn't gonna last very long. No confidence in his off-speed stuff and no command of his ordinary heater = bad news. They were able to sit back and wait for a heater up, and he would oblige.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Kellogg looked much better. He knew how to mix in his off-speed stuff much better. His off-speed stuff looked much better, too. When Steele threw his off-speed pitches, they just looked like junk pitches and weren't fooling anyone. Kellogg was able to throw strikes with his, and he was able to fool quite a few guys, too. He had nice spin and movement on both the changeup and curveball.

 

He just looked like he knew what he was doing out there. He could paint the corners and get guys looking. He could sneak a fastball by them. He mixed his pitches well and kept hitters off-balance. Daz Cameron, in particular, looked clueless against Kellogg. He had no idea what was coming, and probably couldn't have done anything with it had the catcher told him what was coming.

 

I'm not sure what happened in the middle innings that was so different. But they were squaring him up pretty well. He looked fantastic in the first two and final two innings, though. In the third and fourth, he gave up a triple, a double, and a homer that were all struck well. I thought he had lost it and was done. But he came back looking great in the 5th and 6th. He did give up a triple in the 5th, but that should have been caught. It was nearly an identical play to the one I described with Steele. Lazy fly ball to right field that bounced off the short fence. Martinez just misjudged it and should have made the catch.

 

Despite the lack of velocity, I was definitely impressed. Kellogg looked good. He had a nice mix of pitches and all of them were effective. And he pounded the zone, without giving them too many hittable pitches. All of the contact, outside the middle innings, was really soft contact.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

As I said, Eloy didn't play the first game and DH'd the second. That was a bummer. But, he looked comfortable at the plate. He did get fooled on a changeup once. But, other than that, he saw the ball well and was able to lay off pitches. There didn't appear to be any huge swing-and-miss problems. He wasn't Javying it up out there. He looked for strikes and was able to put bat on ball. His double was a thing to behold. He turned on a ball, showing his good bat speed. The sound off the bat was impressive. And it came off the bat with Soler-like exit velocity. He just ripped it down the line. It seemed like it was only in the air for a millisecond before falling in. He showed decent speed, too. There was a little dribbler past the mound that the third baseman fielded. Seeing nobody covering third, Eloy took off on the throw over to first and beat the third baseman to the bag on the return throw.

 

Dewees didn't really get to show off his skills too much. I wanted to see his speed in action, but he had no real opportunity to use it. Defensively, he did whiff on a ball rolling into the outfield. I don't know what happened there or how he missed it. He also has a weak arm. That's gonna be an issue. At the plate, he looked fine. He seemed to have a good plan of attack at the plate. His swing is compact, but he derives quite a bit of power from it. He had some bad BABIP luck, lining out several times. And he hit one ball really hard that was just foul that would have cleared the fence with ease in right field. His first at bat in the second game was ugly. He got fooled a couple times by the lefty on the mound. And he struck out swinging at a ball in the dirt. He was visibly upset with himself on that. He looked much better in the second AB against the lefty, lining a couple hard foul, before lining out. Not the best day for him, but I liked his swing and he made hard contact.

 

Eddy Martinez didn't impress me at all. He did nothing worthwhile in the game. I know he's more of a project with tools than a polished player. But, I'll use Javy for instance as a comparison (probably not the best idea to compare tools against Javy horsefeathering Baez, but I'm gonna do it). When I saw Javy in Iowa last year, I think he went 0-4, but I left the park amazed by his tools. They were loud and they were quite evident. It was clear that he was the most talented player on the field, regardless of what he accomplished on the field. Eddy Martinez's tools aren't the same, not even close. I'm not sure which tool he has that's even that good. He has a nice arm. He made a strong throw into second that should have nabbed the runner. And he made a strong throw home on a sac fly. It looked like he might have been trying to overthrowing that one, though. It was way off line. He had no chance at the guy, regardless, but he does have arm strength. It's not such a great arm that it wowed me, though. It was just a nice arm. He didn't really get to show off his speed much, so I'm not sure how great it is. In the field, he didn't appear to have the best instincts. On a fly ball over his head, he was kinda froze for a second before going back and making the play. I didn't see nearly enough to judge his defense, though.

 

At the plate, he was just bad. He chased a few pitches, got froze on another. He swung through a few pitches. And, when he made contact, it was weak. His bat speed didn't look great. I'm not sure what I'm missing there. Maybe the tools are real and I just didn't get a good chance to catch a glimpse. But he did nothing to impress me. His tools didn't even impress me much.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

P.J. Higgins was the revelation of the night for me. I somehow had missed that he was on some Chesny Young horsefeathers to start the year. I remember him being alright last year. Honestly, I don't know much about him. I thought he was just a guy and not someone to whom I should direct my attention. Had I known about that BB%, I would have been paying more attention to the rest of his game.

 

He can hit, though. He's got an excellent approach at the plate and showed a good eye. He's looking for his pitch and is ready to attack. He hit the ball hard. Everything was either on the ground or on a line, though. It wasn't a power swing. But everything coming off his bat was hit hard. He liked going the other way, too. He should have had another hit, too, but the second baseman made a great diving catch on a rocket to his left.

 

He looked good behind the plate, too. He caught a guy stealing with a really strong throw, and he looked athletic. I'm gonna see these guys in South Bend again on Monday and Tuesday. So I'll be paying more attention to see what kind of receiver he is.

 

I would hope there's maybe some gap power in there, too. He's got a solid frame and he looks athletic.

 

I didn't get to see too much of Matt Rose. He only played the second game. But he impressed. He's got a tall, wiry frame. He looked athletic, too. He made a hell of a catch on a pop up in foul territory. He and Higgins both tried chasing it down. And Rose got there just in time and reached into the South Bend dugout and made a nice snag before it fell. The guy on third tried tagging up and scoring, and Rose made a great throw in the perfect spot to Kellogg, as he and the runner both came sprinting to the plate to complete the double play.

 

At the plate, I wasn't able to get a great read on Rose. He popped up twice, and only stepped to the plate three times. I didn't get to see much. His third AB was very nice, though. He hit the hell out of the ball, knocking one over Cameron's head and up against the wall. He definitely has some power in there.

[craig]

Thanks, Duke. Super reports, love the detail! Really helpful. Too bad on Eddy. Very encouraging on PJ, though, that he looks athletic. The positives on his catcher defense, as a very new, inexperience catcher convert, is really fun. That he looks as good as his batting line shows is also fun. And very encouraging that Eloy looks (and sounds) legit.

 

Thanks so much for being willing to put so many of your observations into words. Love it.

[sneakypower]

hopefully Eddy Julio has the flu or something