Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 8-30-16

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Box Scores:

 

Iowa lost 8-2 Box Score

 

Tennessee won 5-3 Box Score

 

Myrtle Beach won 1-0 (11 innings) on a Bryant Flete walk-off single Box Score

 

South Bend had the day off

 

Eugene won 7-5 Box Score

 

AZL Cubs lost their playoff game 4-0 Box Score

[craig]

5K/0BB in 2 innings for Daury Torrez. He's had a very good second half. Has some pretty sharp splits, good arm, low slot, tough on righties. Not so tough on lefties, apparently.

 

Cease 8K/4BB in 5 innings. 2 hits. Guy is hard to hit, K's galore. Last 4 starts, 29K/10BB/6H/16IP.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

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[Stu]

So is Clifton a thing we should be legitimately excited about as a potential MLB starter?

[davell]

So is Clifton a thing we should be legitimately excited about as a potential MLB starter?

 

Probably not. I'd say its much more likely he winds up as a high leverage pen arm than as a starter.

[craig]

Given the injury risk and given some issues with his control and stuff, naturally it's less than probable that Clifton will end up being an excellent big-league rotation guy. He doesn't have a strong history for having good control. The curve is a very hard pitch to control, so not sure whether he'll ever be able to become a consistent strike-thrower. Big-league hitters do a better job of hitting curves, of laying off of non-strike curves, of spoiling 2-strike curves, and of making curveballers pay when they do hang a few. Clifton's fastball seems to be good but isn't great, I don't think. And I'm not sure what he has as fall-back on days when the curve is off. So, lots of reasons to think he might not succeed.

 

Still, I can't help but be really interested in a guy with a put-away curve like that, combined with what I think is a pretty good fastball. The kind of K/HR numbers he's put up this year at age 20/21 are pretty impressive for a guy his age. He'll still be 21 for over a month at AA next year, so he's still got time to continue to refine his game. I wonder what the scouting reports on him will say this offseason.

 

An oddity is that his arm slot looks like it might be good versus righties. But his season splits actually show better results versus lefties. A lot of curveballers get killed by lefty hitters, so if he doesn't have problems with lefties, I think that's actually a very good sign.

 

I'm pretty interested. Obviously easily in our top-10 list, possibly top 5-7.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Grimm is a good mental image for what Clifton could be. Clifton is also 6-1 and has that weirdly abbreviated delivery working against his chances as a starter too.

[davell]

Grimm is a good mental image for what Clifton could be. Clifton is also 6-1 and has that weirdly abbreviated delivery working against his chances as a starter too.

 

He's not 6'1. Its really odd that he's listed at that. But FG has him at 6'4 and his HS/drafted puff pieces all had him at 6'5 and 6'6.

[craig]

.... and has that weirdly abbreviated delivery working against his chances as a starter too.

 

Is that still the case, or as much so as before? I wonder if he hasn't smoothed that out some. Seemed the last video of him that I saw, his delivery looked smoother and more normal. And the guy's only 21, so if there's something with his delivery it's not inconceivable that the Cubs will work with him on that and make some improvements.