Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 6-3-21

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Box Scores:

 

Iowa lost 8-5 Box Score

 

SS D. Strange-Gordon 2/5, R, K, 2B 93)

CF J. Marisnick 0/3, 2 K - rehab

RF J. Heyward 2/3, R, RBI

1B T. Wolters 1/4, 2 K

SP R. Stock 4 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 2-4 GO-FO

RP M. Rucker 2 IP, 5 H, 6 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, 1 HBP, 1-0 GO-FO

RP Z. Effross 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K, 3-0 GO-FO - AAA debut

 

Tennessee lost 5-4 (game suspended yesterday) Box Score

 

LF D. Hill 1/4, R, RBI, K, 2B (3)

2B C. Strumpf 1/4, RBI, K

3B G. Byrd 1/4, R, RBI, K, HR (1)

RF C. Morel 0/4, K

CF B. Davis 2/4, 2B (1)

SP L. Lugo 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, 2-2 GO-FO

RP B. Hughes 2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 1 HR, 3-0 GO-FO - AA debut

 

Tennessee lost 1-0 (7 innings) Box Score

 

RF D. Hill 0/3, K

2B C. Strumpf 0/3

DH M. Amaya 0/2, K, HBP

3B C. Morel 2/2, BB, E (4, throw)

SS L. Jordan 0/3, K

LF DJ Artis 0/2

SP P. Remy 6 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, 5-2 GO-FO - AA debut

 

South Bend won 5-4 Box Score

 

CF E. Americaan 1/4, BB, 2 K

SS D. Zinn 0/5, K

DH N. Velázquez 1/4, R, 2 K, 3B (1)

RF Y. Perlaza 2/4, 2 R, RBI, 2 K

LF B. Beesley 3/4, 2 RBI, 2B (2), 3B (1)

SP C. Kachmar 6 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 1 HBP, 2 WP, 5-4 GO-FO

RP B. Carraway 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 1 K, 2-1 GO-FO

 

Myrtle Beach suspended in the top of the 6th inning

[Bertz]

Waiting an extra couple days for Herz was worth it

 

 

I feel like you've gotta move him up soon. He's overpowering guys right now.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

This was fun:

 

[craig]

Wow. Glad he's not injured! :):)

[Hrubes20]

Carraway still hasn’t given up a hit in MiLB. I’d like to see hin pitch his way to AA this month. Seems like they were hoping for a multi-inning outing last night but he led off the second with a walk

 

Herz’s production is fun, lots of Ks, popups, and fair share of GBs. I notice that alot of his Ks are on offspeeds. That’s positive since his offspeeds were knocked out of HS especially the breaking stuff. Where I start asking questions is whether it’s ideal to maul A ball hitters with offspeeds and if that might hide flaws more selective hitters will expose

 

I think in a normal year this is a fair question to think about. But due to the lost season last year, he was facing a lineup yesterday that was really old for A ball standards. It was almost entirely college hitters that have seen breaking stuff before. Not worried at this point.

[craig]

I don't think it matters that much for a pitcher, particularly an off-speed pitcher. For power pitchers, I think a guy might maybe get away with living on fastball against weaker hitters, and be more content living off the fastball instead of working on offspeed stuff he'll need in majors.

But for an offspeed guy, I assume Herz is already mixing his pitches and practicing all of them, regardless of level.

 

The plate's the same size and distance in Myrtle and South Bend. Herz knows, sees, and feels when his curve is doing what he wants it to do and is going where he wants to throw it. So in terms of developing his ability to throw the pitches consistently, I doubt A- versus A+ vs AA makes much difference for Herz developmentally.

 

Tom, I did see what you saw, though. I think all of the 4-5 K's in the video from last night were breaking balls. One was almost certainly a bad pitch, a high loopy pitch that kinda curved over the top of the zone and was taken as strike 3 on a bad call by the ump. Pretty sure Herz didn't want it to do what it did, and knows he got away with a bad pitch and a bad call. Others were chase breakers.

 

I'm curious what Herz is doing earlier in counts? It's great to throw chase breaking balls and get chase K's, that's how most big-league K's work, too. But, you can't get chase-K's until you've gotten two strikes. I assume he's throwing a lot of fastballs for strikes to set up the chase K's, without either missing a lot and walking guys, and without getting his fastball whacked earlier in the count.

 

The inability of low-minors guys to hit fastballs is one reason why it helps to move a breaking-ball winner up, though? So maybe promotion will be pretty helpful for him? Guys without great fastballs may be unafraid to throw fastballs for strikes, maybe fat strikes, to set up their chase K's. But then when they reach the majors, they're scared to throw the fastball in the zone, and have a harder time getting to 2-strike counts. For example, a guy gets to a 1-2 count in the minors and throws a chase curve or two and gets the K'. Maybe in the majors the same guys instead gets to 2-1 counts, and throws the same two chase curves, but what was a minor-league K becomes a big-league walk.

 

For me, I would NOT promote Herz for a while, because doing so might disrupt a good groove, and might confuse cause-and-effect. Most likely he's stacked some good games, but hot doesn't always stay hot. Probably if you give him 6 more starts at Myrtle, he's going to dip off of the great wave he's on now, and things won't go quite so great. We'll know it's him, not the level of competition, if his performance dips somewhat. But if they promote, and he has some wilder games, then the tendency might be to think it's because of the better batters, when it may be just coincidence.