Minor League Discussion & Boxes, 4-27-22

[CaliforniaRaisin]

PCA's trajectory is gonna start intersecting with Caissie's really soon I think. PCA is a high enough value prospect that if he needs to be promoted he's gonna get promoted, but that creates a knock on decision given the South Bend outfield. Canario and Pinango are significant enough prospects in their own right to need everyday playing time, and Nwogu could use some reps too, while none of them are ideal promotion candidates themselves.

 

That leaves Caissie, who is completely lost right now(5 for 45 w/ 1 2B and 3/23 BB/K) and hasn't yet shown any signs of turning a corner. We know from some recent experience(Howard) that the front office doesn't like admitting defeat on aggressive assignments, but we're already seeing this come to a head without PCA since Caissie hasn't played the last 2 games(and I haven't seen any sign of an injury). We can't be far from PCA and Caissie swapping teams, right?

 

I really doubt it. Like you said they didn't really do it at all last year except with Santana (who got about twice as much runway). Plus in the Athletic this AM Sharma made it sound like the org was unconcerned, echoing the "we like to see guys go through a little failure" talking points from back when the core was developing. I think between the DH and regular rest days they can make all four guys work, and it'll be one of the non-specials that gets edged out. Then maybe Canario getting an aggressive bump up when Roederer is ready?

 

Is it that aggressive to promote Canario when he’s already at 249 PA at high-A and is on the 40-man?

[Bertz]

PCA's trajectory is gonna start intersecting with Caissie's really soon I think. PCA is a high enough value prospect that if he needs to be promoted he's gonna get promoted, but that creates a knock on decision given the South Bend outfield. Canario and Pinango are significant enough prospects in their own right to need everyday playing time, and Nwogu could use some reps too, while none of them are ideal promotion candidates themselves.

 

That leaves Caissie, who is completely lost right now(5 for 45 w/ 1 2B and 3/23 BB/K) and hasn't yet shown any signs of turning a corner. We know from some recent experience(Howard) that the front office doesn't like admitting defeat on aggressive assignments, but we're already seeing this come to a head without PCA since Caissie hasn't played the last 2 games(and I haven't seen any sign of an injury). We can't be far from PCA and Caissie swapping teams, right?

 

I really doubt it. Like you said they didn't really do it at all last year except with Santana (who got about twice as much runway). Plus in the Athletic this AM Sharma made it sound like the org was unconcerned, echoing the "we like to see guys go through a little failure" talking points from back when the core was developing. I think between the DH and regular rest days they can make all four guys work, and it'll be one of the non-specials that gets edged out. Then maybe Canario getting an aggressive bump up when Roederer is ready?

 

Is it that aggressive to promote Canario when he’s already at 249 PA at high-A and is on the 40-man?

 

Yeah I think those are the reasons he'd be the one most likely to get it. I was thinking aggressive because he's currently running a 40% k rate, although we saw a couple times last year (Nelly being the one who jumps fastest to mind) where guys who did not seem ready from our vantage got promoted and immediately produced at their new level. There's a massive information assymetry at play here.

[sneakypower]

"we like to see guys go through a little failure"

[Bertz]

"we like to see guys go through a little failure"

 

I'd normally agree with you about this sort of thing being spin, but they 100% said these exact same things about Rizzo et all and were proven to be absolutely correct.

 

Speaking of which, weren't you super adamant that Javy had no chance at being a decent hitter because of similar rationale?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I feel like there's a difference in degree in any adversity the championship core faced as minor leaguers, and someone like Howard struggling to hit, and then again with someone like Caissie or Preciado who are just getting completely overmatched. I'm not a swing doctor and it's only been 50 PA so I'm fine with a holding pattern for now, but this is a step beyond what we've seen folks work through in the past and if it continues I think you have to do something if only for the player's psyche.

[Bertz]

I feel like there's a difference in degree in any adversity the championship core faced as minor leaguers, and someone like Howard struggling to hit, and then again with someone like Caissie or Preciado who are just getting completely overmatched. I'm not a swing doctor and it's only been 50 PA so I'm fine with a holding pattern for now, but this is a step beyond what we've seen folks work through in the past and if it continues I think you have to do something if only for the player's psyche.

 

I'm not bored enough to comb through gamelogs, but Javy had some real rough stretches, I believe Soler too.

 

You also won't see me throwing out any silver linings on a case like Howard. His entire career has been dreck, with a ~25 game BABIP fueled stretch at the tail end of last year being the highlight. He's more than used his mulligan.

 

But if Caissie or any of these guys have a 2022 like Nwogu's 2021, 6 absolutely abysmal weeks and then generally kicking ass, I'll worry very little about it given their ages.

[sneakypower]

Speaking of which, weren't you super adamant that Javy had no chance at being a decent hitter because of similar rationale?

maybe pessimistic/skeptical is a better word than adamant, but yeah for sure, i underestimated his otherworldly tools to help allow him to survive a broken approach

 

my hot take here is mostly that it's probably not good that most of our top hitting prospects are aspiring to be Shaq Thompson

[Bertz]

Speaking of which, weren't you super adamant that Javy had no chance at being a decent hitter because of similar rationale?

maybe pessimistic/skeptical is a better word than adamant, but yeah for sure, i underestimated his otherworldly tools to help allow him to survive a broken approach

 

my hot take here is mostly that it's probably not good that most of our top hitting prospects are aspiring to be Shaq Thompson

 

Would you rather have Caissie demolish the ball in the Arizona backfields, put up a good not great ~110 OPS+ at MB, or get his ass handed to him at South Bend? The former are certainly better for us all throwing around high fives on here, but do you think they are actually better for his development?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I feel like there's a difference in degree in any adversity the championship core faced as minor leaguers, and someone like Howard struggling to hit, and then again with someone like Caissie or Preciado who are just getting completely overmatched. I'm not a swing doctor and it's only been 50 PA so I'm fine with a holding pattern for now, but this is a step beyond what we've seen folks work through in the past and if it continues I think you have to do something if only for the player's psyche.

 

I'm not bored enough to comb through gamelogs, but Javy had some real rough stretches, I believe Soler too.

 

You also won't see me throwing out any silver linings on a case like Howard. His entire career has been dreck, with a ~25 game BABIP fueled stretch at the tail end of last year being the highlight. He's more than used his mulligan.

 

But if Caissie or any of these guys have a 2022 like Nwogu's 2021, 6 absolutely abysmal weeks and then generally kicking ass, I'll worry very little about it given their ages.

 

Nwogu is a pretty good counter point, though between the 2020 season and iirc his college->draft->rest of 2019 he had a big gap without regular competitive games that would help explain such an initial slump. Neither of Caissie or Preciado have that type of built in excuse.

 

But even if we set that aside, the logjam is something to come back to. Canario, Pinango, Nwogu, Caissie, and probably soon PCA is a lot of outfielders even with the DH and Caissie technically able to play some 1B(and it's not a great look for the other 1B/DH options not currently faceplanting). This isn't a crisis since we're exactly one muscle strain from it being fixed with normal rest and rotation for a month(at which point maybe Caissie is hitting, Canario's promoted, a different player is hurt, someone is traded, etc), but with the prerequisite that PCA and Caissie's trends continue, I think by memorial day at the latest it becomes prudent to swap them.

[mul21]

Speaking of which, weren't you super adamant that Javy had no chance at being a decent hitter because of similar rationale?

maybe pessimistic/skeptical is a better word than adamant, but yeah for sure, i underestimated his otherworldly tools to help allow him to survive a broken approach

 

my hot take here is mostly that it's probably not good that most of our top hitting prospects are aspiring to be Shaq Thompson

 

Would you rather have Caissie demolish the ball in the Arizona backfields, put up a good not great ~110 OPS+ at MB, or get his ass handed to him at South Bend? The former are certainly better for us all throwing around high fives on here, but do you think they are actually better for his development?

 

I think you'd rather see a guy put up a 110 OPS in MB because at that point he's seeing some success but also isn't at a point where he's dominating so much that he doesn't have anything to work on. I mean, he's a 19 year old kid from Canada, so he's probably slightly behind the curve of a lot of southern US born players the same age anyway. I don't think slowing down his overall promotion schedule is a problem in this case if it bodes for a higher likelihood of future success.

[Bertz]

So I was trying to look into stuff about Nelly Velazquez, and I found some data that's relevant to the Caissie and co. conversation. Fangraphs actually has for minor leaguers Swinging Strike rate. It's not on actual player pages, but it is on their minor league leaderboards. You'd love MLB quality data of in/out of zone plate discipline data, but this is a big piece of context I didn't know we had at our fingertips.

 

Here's where some of our notable prospects rank in terms of swinging strike rate among the guys at their level (percentile here is with 100% being good at contact and 0% being bad, not 100% being most swings and misses)

 

Iowa

 

Brennen Davis - 13th percentile

 

Tennessee

 

Chris Morel - 39th

Nelly Velazquez - 15th

Chase Strumpf - 27th

Yonathan Perlaza - 34th

Bryce Ball - 56th (this seems notable?)

 

South Bend

 

Alexander Canario - 13th

Ed Howard - 22nd

Owen Caissie - 48th

Yohendrick Pinango - 53rd

Jordan Nwogu - 61st (!?!)

 

Myrtle Beach

 

Reggie Preciado - 3rd (10th lowest overall)

Kevin Alcantara - 29th

James Triantos - 95th

PCA - 95th (they're right next to each other on the list)

 

I don't think there's a ton to take away from here. Davis/Nelly/Canario's K numbers are probably a little higher than you'd expect from these swinging strike rates, but they're still quite bad. Caissie is the big outlier here (and I swear I didn't know this going in). This makes it seem like he's been super passive at the plate right now, not really unable to make contact. Preciado doesn't get the same silver lining unfortunately. And yet another data point that reinforces how amazing PCA has been.

 

Ball and Nwogu I think outright shocked me. This is something to keep an eye on for them.