Minor League Playoff Discussion & Boxes, 9-14-19

[CaliforniaRaisin]

MWL Championship Series Game 3 (South Bend leads the best-of-5 series 2-0):

 

South Bend at Clinton, 6:30 pm CT

 

Probable Starter:

 

South Bend: RHP Riley Thompson

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Nico is already horsefeathering around in the big leagues, Brennen Davis should be considered a unanimous top 100 prospect in baseball, Cole and Kohl are probably top 10 prospects in this system, Riley Thompson, Jack Patterson, Andy Weber, Cam Sanders and Edumond Americaan are all arguably top 30 prospects with potential big league careers. Oh yeah, and one of their second rounders was half the haul for Nick Castellanos.

 

The 2018 draft has some potential (beating davell to this thought).

[craig]

Riley Thompson allowed one baserunner on an error, K'd 10 in 5 shutout innings

 

Cubswin and others, what's the word on Riley's stuff these days? Yesterday capped a pretty nice season overall, K/IP around 1, K/BB around 3 not that bad, HR's maybe the yellow-flag.

 

Draft reports were good velocity, and there was allusion to 98-99 tops, but that seemed kind of the usual "saw it once" hyperbole, with the actual working fastball I thought supposedly more in the 93-94 range in short-outings at Eugene. Reports from college were very bad on control. I don't recall really on breaking stuff, whether they were mediocre movement/break plus super-wild? Or whether he had something good/sharp, but just super-wild.

 

Obviously a 10K/0BB night, you don't get 10K in 5 innings even in A-ball with just a fastball. Must be getting guys chasing on something off-speed for that.

 

Seems like a very interesting guy at this point. Obviously turning 24 next summer, he'll never be young for level. Obviously we'd prefer he was 20 or 21. That said, the clock doesn't stop while a guy goes to college, but that doesn't change the inherent arm or the physical capacity and long-term potential. And obviously if you have surgery and miss a year plus, the clock doesn't stop for that either.

 

Will be interesting if he can stay healthy and stay controlled at Myrtle. Pitching friendly there, so good chance that he'll post good numbers first half. In which case I could envision him getting a second-half promotion to Tennessee, and perhaps be in Tennessee by the time 24th birthday hits in July?

 

My recall at draft was thinking his profile sounded relief-ish to me. Not sure if that's still necessarily true. But if progressing as a good-arm-good-stuff rotation candidate is the upside, and "settling" for throws-quite-hard reliever wouldn't be bad at all.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Riley Thompson allowed one baserunner on an error, K'd 10 in 5 shutout innings

 

Cubswin and others, what's the word on Riley's stuff these days? Yesterday capped a pretty nice season overall, K/IP around 1, K/BB around 3 not that bad, HR's maybe the yellow-flag.

 

Draft reports were good velocity, and there was allusion to 98-99 tops, but that seemed kind of the usual "saw it once" hyperbole, with the actual working fastball I thought supposedly more in the 93-94 range in short-outings at Eugene. Reports from college were very bad on control. I don't recall really on breaking stuff, whether they were mediocre movement/break plus super-wild? Or whether he had something good/sharp, but just super-wild.

 

Obviously a 10K/0BB night, you don't get 10K in 5 innings even in A-ball with just a fastball. Must be getting guys chasing on something off-speed for that.

 

Seems like a very interesting guy at this point. Obviously turning 24 next summer, he'll never be young for level. Obviously we'd prefer he was 20 or 21. That said, the clock doesn't stop while a guy goes to college, but that doesn't change the inherent arm or the physical capacity and long-term potential. And obviously if you have surgery and miss a year plus, the clock doesn't stop for that either.

 

Will be interesting if he can stay healthy and stay controlled at Myrtle. Pitching friendly there, so good chance that he'll post good numbers first half. In which case I could envision him getting a second-half promotion to Tennessee, and perhaps be in Tennessee by the time 24th birthday hits in July?

 

My recall at draft was thinking his profile sounded relief-ish to me. Not sure if that's still necessarily true. But if progressing as a good-arm-good-stuff rotation candidate is the upside, and "settling" for throws-quite-hard reliever wouldn't be bad at all.

 

This was his velocity last night:

 

 

Breaking ball and change:

 

[craig]

Thanks, Cal. Mid 90's with a sharp breaking ball and a shaky change, that seems like solid stuff, and reasonable for a 2nd-year guy. The note that "Clinton had no answer for his fastball" is interesting. A lot of 93-95 fastballs are pretty hittable, even in A-ball. If his fastball is not only decently fast but is actually hard to hit, that would be nice to see.

 

The shaky change, that seems pretty common, that's an awfully hard pitch to command or throw consistently. Sounds like a deal where if the change gets solid, he might stick in rotation for a while; and if not, might transition into the 2-pitch relief guy.

 

A common developmental thing is for a guy without a great change to introduce a cutter at some point, to help against opposite-side guys. That might perhaps come later.

 

Anyway, sounds like he might have stuff that could play well in the majors. Like everybody else, probably a question of how well he can command and locate any of it, and how consistently. This was a very impressive step-up season for him.