2019 Minor Leagues/Prospect Discussion Thread

[Graham's Cracker]

Barreto off to a good start with the C's. 2-2 with a walk so far. Apparently, Dieferson is his older brother according to Gerry at Battersbox and he was in extended this spring. He was quite good in the DSL the past 2 years.

[dagger]

Barreto off to a good start with the C's. 2-2 with a walk so far.

He ended up 4-4 with a walk as Vancouver pounded the crap out of Salem, 11-2.

[dagger]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/MattEddyBA/status/477813176365355009[/tweet]

[SharoneWright]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/MattEddyBA/status/477813176365355009[/tweet]

And after all that fuss to sign him.... he sucked.

[FrankGrimes]

why not just convert him into a pitcher?

[dagger]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/benwag247/status/477966028530798592[/tweet]

[Schad]

Sanchez got Sanchez-y in the fifth...walk, stolen base against, infield single, stolen base against, stolen base against, walk, night over. His strike percentage dipped to 55% by the time he was pulled.

[soulchild_07]

Aaron Sanchez is officially out of the game now...finished with 4.0 4 ER while leaving 2 aboard when he exited... one inherited runner scored, pitched to 3 batters in the 5th, 6 hits 4BB 2K 86 pitches 47 for strikes 6-1 ground out to fly out ratio. Defence didn't help him out in the 5th.

[Schad]

On the curious case of Pat Venditte...

This probably doesn't belong here, or anywhere, save for the bit where the Jays (and every other team in baseball ) could have had the guy if they so desired, because he was Rule V eligible. But it has reached the point where it's more about baseball's inability to address outliers, particularly in the minor leagues, than anything about the player himself, and thus it ends up here.

Some of us have been watching Venditte's minor league career since he was drafted, back in 2008...he was an old college senior from a small (in baseball, at least) school, but it broke some hearts when he went to the Yankees in the 20th round rather than getting scooped up by Jays, because he was a switch-pitcher; a guy capable of throwing both left and right-handed, though with a largely differentiated arsenal from either side (pretty vicious from the left, soft but accurate from the right).

He debuted that same year, and was lights-out; MLB also had to adopt a rule to deal with him. He moved up to full-season in 2009 and was lights-out. He graduated to AA in 2010 and was lights-out. He was excellent in 2011, 2012 and 2013, and remained in the minors. He didn't even receive a fair shake at AAA until recently...a few weeks short of his 29th birthday.

He's a long way from a sure thing; he has always thrown mid-80s from the right side, albeit from a really difficult arm angle. But MLB has always been a league in which relievers get chances because, well, they're a tough group to evaluate, and you might as well give them a chance...yet he has never gotten one, and until recently it didn't look like he would. So over the past couple years, the Yankees had Joba and Aceves blowing games, but Venditte remained in the minors. A good dozen teams with bullpen issues and an open roster spot had a shot at him in the offseason, and opted for more proven options. And now, for lack of anything else, he might finally be on the verge of making the bigs.

In a league where just about everyone gets their moment to prove themselves against top-level competition if they have a smidgen of talent, and where teams will happily carry mediocre players who are moderately successful platoon players (whether at the plate or on the mound), it's one of the stranger things in memory that a guy whose talent is negating all of those platoon advantages has languished in the minors for the best part of six years, successful all the way. Baseball be weird; baseball management be weirder.

[dagger]

Norris has been promoted
[tweet]https://twitter.com/DanielNorris18/status/478206974992347137[/tweet]

[dagger]

Bluefield roster

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ym ... 7&sid=t517

[vaff87]

Bluefield roster

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ym ... 7&sid=t517

I didn't know Anthony Alford still existed. Is he going to play more than a few weeks, this year?

[Schad]

DJ Davis in another of his strikeout funks...five multi-K games in his last eight. Poor man's Anthony Gose continues to be a bad look.

[Schad]

As a followup to the discussion previous about fixing pitchers who've simply lost it, I present the case of Daniel Bard. He was as wild as can be in his first couple minor league seasons before finding his release point in 2008, leading to three excellent seasons of big-league relief. He then lost it again, and good golly has he lost it.

In 2012, his combined minor league line saw 29 walks in 32 IP...a BB/9 of 8.2. He also managed to hit 10 of 163 batters faced, which is rather remarkable.

In 2013, he pitched 15.1 innings in the minors. He walked 27 batters, for a BB/9 of 15.8.

After three appearances in low-A ball for a Texas affiliate this year, he has faced 14 batters. He has recorded two outs. He has walked seven of them and hit five more while giving up no hits. His BB/9 sits at 94.5...his HBP/9 (a stat that perhaps has never before been necessary) sits at 67.5.

Sometimes, things are just irreparably broken.


Edit: it's actually even worse than that, because he pitched today...recorded zero outs, gave up zero hits, hit two batters and walked two more. Having his throwing 100 MPH with no control is pretty dangerous, really. Though projecting his numbers over a full nine innings now gets you a 121-walk, 94-HBP no-hitter, which would be fairly special.

[s e n s i]

His BB/9 sits at 94.5...his HBP/9 (a stat that perhaps has never before been necessary) sits at 67.5.

i remember red sox fans complaining about bard's wildness some time ago, begging farrell or valentine at the time to take him out of a game versus the jays in fear he may murder somebody. they really weren't kidding, those numbers are schupid.

[Schad]

His BB/9 sits at 94.5...his HBP/9 (a stat that perhaps has never before been necessary) sits at 67.5.

i remember red sox fans complaining about bard's wildness some time ago, begging farrell or valentine at the time to take him out of a game versus the jays in fear he may murder somebody. they really weren't kidding, those numbers are schupid.

Yeah, he faced us a few times when he was returned to the bullpen and went into meltdown mode...I remember it being genuinely terrifying to watch.

[Schad]

His BB/9 sits at 94.5...his HBP/9 (a stat that perhaps has never before been necessary) sits at 67.5.

i remember red sox fans complaining about bard's wildness some time ago, begging farrell or valentine at the time to take him out of a game versus the jays in fear he may murder somebody. they really weren't kidding, those numbers are schupid.

Yeah, he faced us a few times when he was returned to the bullpen and went into meltdown mode...I remember it being genuinely terrifying to watch.

[vaff87]

As a followup to the discussion previous about fixing pitchers who've simply lost it, I present the case of Daniel Bard. He was as wild as can be in his first couple minor league seasons before finding his release point in 2008, leading to three excellent seasons of big-league relief. He then lost it again, and good golly has he lost it.

In 2012, his combined minor league line saw 29 walks in 32 IP...a BB/9 of 8.2. He also managed to hit 10 of 163 batters faced, which is rather remarkable.

In 2013, he pitched 15.1 innings in the minors. He walked 27 batters, for a BB/9 of 15.8.

After three appearances in low-A ball for a Texas affiliate this year, he has faced 14 batters. He has recorded two outs. He has walked seven of them and hit five more while giving up no hits. His BB/9 sits at 94.5...his HBP/9 (a stat that perhaps has never before been necessary) sits at 67.5.

Sometimes, things are just irreparably broken.


Edit: it's actually even worse than that, because he pitched today...recorded zero outs, gave up zero hits, hit two batters and walked two more. Having his throwing 100 MPH with no control is pretty dangerous, really. Though projecting his numbers over a full nine innings now gets you a 121-walk, 94-HBP no-hitter, which would be fairly special.

Dear Lord.

I asked my friend(who is a Yankees fan), if he knew WTF happened to him, a few days ago.

I agree that this guy should stop pitching, for the safety of other people...

[Lateral Quicks]

And we thought Romero had control problems. I simply can't fathom how his control can be that bad. You'd think he could dial it down to 88-90 to try and find the plate again...

[Avenger]

Norris has been promoted
[tweet]https://twitter.com/DanielNorris18/status/478206974992347137[/tweet]

I went back through the FSL pitching records to see if anyone's (or atleast in the last 10 years) dominated the league like Norris has and its interesting. Only two pitchers have put up lower FIP's(Norris stands apart if you just look at ERA's) in the FSL with a minimum of 60 innings pitched, that's Kevin Slowey and another twins prospect who was overage so he doesn't really matter. The next closest is our own Kyle Drabek who did it at a similar age, his numbers declined pretty significantly after he made the AA jump, we'll see how Norris does but if he acquits himself in AA he becomes an instant blue chipper and he probably is one already in many people's minds.