2013 Minor Leagues/Prospect Discussion Thread

Strav · Post #361 » by **Strav** » Thu May 30, 2013 1:37 pm

no link, but it looks like Dustin McGowan is to be called up for the weekend series. And all is right with the world.

There There · Post #362 » by **There There** » Thu May 30, 2013 2:41 pm

vaff87 wrote:The Rays have suspended Josh Sale indefinitely for acting like a giant prick in a strip club. I do recall people being upset the Jays passed on this guy. Based on the picture, I'd rather not cheer for this guy...

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-l ... 30126.html

Interesting decision making from the Rays

Act like an idiot in a strip club and you are banished

Rape a woman and we'll gladly add you to our major league roster

galacticos2 · Post #363 » by **galacticos2** » Thu May 30, 2013 4:18 pm

Strav wrote:no link, but it looks like Dustin McGowan is to be called up for the weekend series. And all is right with the world.

oh boy.

Graham's Cracker · Post #364 » by **Graham's Cracker** » Thu May 30, 2013 4:46 pm

Norris comes head-on Lugnuts lefty turning season around with aggressive approach

As Lansing left-hander Daniel Norris took his first steps off the mound in Dayton after giving up six earned runs in 1 1/3 innings, he was already searching for a solution. The 20-year-old walked into the dugout, grabbed the rail and started to cheer on his teammates -- no glove thrown, no stomping into the clubhouse, no time to feel sorry for himself.

Norris said his changes have been to his mentality, not his mechanics. He's pitching with more confidence, trusting his pitching arsenal, and going after hitters. It's a reversal from last season as well, when he went 2-4 with an 8.44 ERA in 13 games between Bluefield and Vancouver in his first taste of pro ball.

"It was frustrating," Norris said of his poor start to 2013. "Last year kind of went the same way. I didn't have a great year, so I think God put that on my plate to help me deal with adversity. I know how to deal with a bad outing. The next day, I'm ready to work and get better. If you stay hungry and come every day ready to work and get better, good things are going to happen. There are still going to be bad outings, but I know how to deal with adversity and I feel confident in myself.

"I wouldn't say I'm figuring out batters. I'd say I'm figuring out myself."

Hoopstarr · Post #365 » by **Hoopstarr** » Fri May 31, 2013 4:13 pm

Garmfay wrote:Couple of former Jays bullpen scrap heat doing decent for other MLB teams

Danny Farquhar has a 43% K rate, throws mid 90s heat now
Robert Coello 0.87 ERA 18Ks in 10.1IP

Look at this forkball from Coello
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/angels-pit ... 10466.html

Graham's Cracker · Post #366 » by **Graham's Cracker** » Sat Jun 1, 2013 2:59 am

Gustavo Pierre has been on fire of late. He went 3-4 tonight (18 hits in past 10)with 2 SB up to .317 on the year. Still can't draw a walk to save his life BB% less than 1%

dagger · Post #367 » by **dagger** » Sat Jun 1, 2013 11:41 am

Deck McGuire should give Ricky Romero some pointers on how to survive bad innings.

Last night against Binghampton, Deck starts off in great fashion - puts the first four batters down, three on strikeouts. Then, with one out in the second, the roof falls in. As Deck is wont to do, he gives up several hits in succession, a combination of singles and doubles. The Mets score five runs before Deck gets the third out. Then he throws four hitless innings and the Fisher Cats rally and win. Vintage Deck.

Really, this organization needs a team shrink more than a pitching coach.

Post #368 » by **Schad** » Sun Jun 2, 2013 4:05 am

dagger wrote:Deck McGuire should give Ricky Romero some pointers on how to survive bad innings.

Last night against Binghampton, Deck starts off in great fashion - puts the first four batters down, three on strikeouts. Then, with one out in the second, the roof falls in. As Deck is wont to do, he gives up several hits in succession, a combination of singles and doubles. The Mets score five runs before Deck gets the third out. Then he throws four hitless innings and the Fisher Cats rally and win. Vintage Deck.

Really, this organization needs a team shrink more than a pitching coach.

I get the sense that he kinda sucks from the stretch. Small sample, but right now his K:BB ratio with the bases empty sits at 2.5, vs. 1.5 with runners on. Not a useful trait for a starting pitcher.

Graham's Cracker · Post #369 » by **Graham's Cracker** » Sun Jun 2, 2013 8:24 pm

Schadenfreude wrote:
dagger wrote:Deck McGuire should give Ricky Romero some pointers on how to survive bad innings.

Last night against Binghampton, Deck starts off in great fashion - puts the first four batters down, three on strikeouts. Then, with one out in the second, the roof falls in. As Deck is wont to do, he gives up several hits in succession, a combination of singles and doubles. The Mets score five runs before Deck gets the third out. Then he throws four hitless innings and the Fisher Cats rally and win. Vintage Deck.

Really, this organization needs a team shrink more than a pitching coach.

I get the sense that he kinda sucks from the stretch. Small sample, but right now his K:BB ratio with the bases empty sits at 2.5, vs. 1.5 with runners on. Not a useful trait for a starting pitcher.

Make him a reliever on the condition that if someone gets on base, he gets hooked to automatically.

Graham's Cracker · Post #370 » by **Graham's Cracker** » Sun Jun 2, 2013 8:45 pm

Gustavo Pierre is 2-2 so far today with his 10th SB. Batting .394 in 99 ab through May and 1st day of June.

Jesse Goldberg-Strassler had this to say about his fielding:
His arm is simply a rocket, and he's making progress. Arm / speed / bat are all eye-opening. Still very young.

Promising. Heck as long as he bats .400, who needs to walk.

Post #371 » by **Schad** » Mon Jun 3, 2013 1:58 am

Graham's Cracker wrote:Gustavo Pierre is 2-2 so far today with his 10th SB. Batting .394 in 99 ab through May and 1st day of June.

Jesse Goldberg-Strassler had this to say about his fielding:
His arm is simply a rocket, and he's making progress. Arm / speed / bat are all eye-opening. Still very young.

Promising. Heck as long as he bats .400, who needs to walk.

He's also somehow hitting .474 on balls in play since May 1st. Either he's hitting a tonne of line drives, or he's a wizard. And a pretty lucky wizard at that.

Graham's Cracker · Post #372 » by **Graham's Cracker** » Mon Jun 3, 2013 2:05 am

Schadenfreude wrote:
Graham's Cracker wrote:Gustavo Pierre is 2-2 so far today with his 10th SB. Batting .394 in 99 ab through May and 1st day of June.

Jesse Goldberg-Strassler had this to say about his fielding:
His arm is simply a rocket, and he's making progress. Arm / speed / bat are all eye-opening. Still very young.

Promising. Heck as long as he bats .400, who needs to walk.

He's also somehow hitting .474 on balls in play since May 1st. Either he's hitting a tonne of line drives, or he's a wizard. And a pretty lucky wizard at that.

My comment was tongue in cheek, however, goes to show how streaky this game can be over the course of a month. As we've seen with the big club too. I still can't believe the 1 walk in 189 ab.

Post #373 » by **Schad** » Mon Jun 3, 2013 2:12 am

I know, I'm just amazed by that number in over 100 PAs...defenses in low-A are bad, but they aren't that bad.

Graham's Cracker · Post #374 » by **Graham's Cracker** » Mon Jun 3, 2013 12:37 pm

Schadenfreude wrote:I know, I'm just amazed by that number in over 100 PAs...defenses in low-A are bad, but they aren't that bad.

The one promising thing is the nice slugging pct. However, he's really got to work on drawing some walks. You are not always going to be able to hit ~.500 on balls in play and for those times when your hits aren't falling you need to get on base in other ways. A .5% walk rate will never play as he climbs to higher levels. The amazing thing is that there has to be times when a pitcher just can find the zone no matter what, particularly at the single A level. How does he manage only 1 walk?!

torontoaces04 · Post #375 » by **torontoaces04** » Mon Jun 3, 2013 1:50 pm

Graham's Cracker wrote:
Schadenfreude wrote:I know, I'm just amazed by that number in over 100 PAs...defenses in low-A are bad, but they aren't that bad.

The one promising thing is the nice slugging pct. However, he's really got to work on drawing some walks. You are not always going to be able to hit ~.500 on balls in play and for those times when your hits aren't falling you need to get on base in other ways. A .5% walk rate will never play as he climbs to higher levels. The amazing thing is that there has to be times when a pitcher just can find the zone no matter what, particularly at the single A level. How does he manage only 1 walk?!

1 BB vs 48 SO in single A...those are JPA-like numbers, and he's still nowhere near the Majors.

Graham's Cracker · Post #376 » by **Graham's Cracker** » Mon Jun 3, 2013 3:09 pm

torontoaces04 wrote:
Graham's Cracker wrote:
Schadenfreude wrote:I know, I'm just amazed by that number in over 100 PAs...defenses in low-A are bad, but they aren't that bad.

The one promising thing is the nice slugging pct. However, he's really got to work on drawing some walks. You are not always going to be able to hit ~.500 on balls in play and for those times when your hits aren't falling you need to get on base in other ways. A .5% walk rate will never play as he climbs to higher levels. The amazing thing is that there has to be times when a pitcher just can find the zone no matter what, particularly at the single A level. How does he manage only 1 walk?!

1 BB vs 48 SO in single A...those are JPA-like numbers, and he's still nowhere near the Majors.

Even JP walks more often than that. Difference being Pierre doesn't K (quite) as much and gets aboard much more frequently. Like JP though, you want to divert your eyes when he plays defence judging by the # of errors he commits.

dagger · Post #377 » by **dagger** » Mon Jun 3, 2013 5:09 pm

Interestingly, Josh Thole starting a 1B for Buffalo today. I don't know if he's done that in the past, but if Adam Lind goes on the block, Thole might have another way to get in games.

By the way, he hit a two run homer in the top of the first, his seventh of the season, driving in Jim Negrych who had singled. As others habe noted, Thole is flashing more power than he did with NYM or at any stop in the minors.

Remind me again why Dickey has a personal caddy?

There There · Post #378 » by **There There** » Mon Jun 3, 2013 5:29 pm

dagger wrote:By the way, he hit a two run homer in the top of the first, his seventh of the season, driving in Jim Negrych who had singled. As others habe noted, Thole is flashing more power than he did with NYM or at any stop in the minors.

His HR/OFB% is significantly higher than recent years.

And given that his doubles are down, I would hesitate to make any assumptions that all of a sudden Thole has added any element of power to his game.

He could just be a tad bit lucky right now and things will come back to normal eventually.

Regardless, it couldn't hurt to call up Thole and give him an opportunity, provided that him and JP are platooning as opposed to Thole just sliding into Blanco's role as Dickey's personal catcher.

If the team doesn't want to budge on the JP as everyday catcher, then they're better off just leaving Thole in Buffalo to play everyday.

dagger · Post #379 » by **dagger** » Mon Jun 3, 2013 8:06 pm

There There wrote:
dagger wrote:By the way, he hit a two run homer in the top of the first, his seventh of the season, driving in Jim Negrych who had singled. As others habe noted, Thole is flashing more power than he did with NYM or at any stop in the minors.

His HR/OFB% is significantly higher than recent years.

And given that his doubles are down, I would hesitate to make any assumptions that all of a sudden Thole has added any element of power to his game.

He could just be a tad bit lucky right now and things will come back to normal eventually.

Regardless, it couldn't hurt to call up Thole and give him an opportunity, provided that him and JP are platooning as opposed to Thole just sliding into Blanco's role as Dickey's personal catcher.

If the team doesn't want to budge on the JP as everyday catcher, then they're better off just leaving Thole in Buffalo to play everyday.

Interestingly, Thole played first base today, which had the virtue of starting him at a new position and give Nickeas a chance to catch and get in more at-bats. Thole didn't have any errors, so that was a start. Obviously if he can play more than one position, and DH, he can do more than give JPA a break. And as a lefthanded hitter, he'd been the perfect platoon batter if Anthopoulos decides to sell high on Adam Lind.

I doubt there is a catcher in baseball putting in more innings than JPA, and when you consider he plays every inning of every game except for 6-7 innings when Dickey pitches, then that's not particularly well advised. Consider he played the whole extra-inning game Friday and Sunday. He plays night games before day games. I don't think that's particularly smart of the organization.

There There · Post #380 » by **There There** » Mon Jun 3, 2013 10:02 pm

I wouldn't read any significance into Thole getting a spot start at first for Buffalo; perhaps he was the only available option for giving Jimenez the day off.

Maybe this is not all a mirage and his bat really has improved to the point that it's realistic to look at him as an everyday option over Arencibia, but regardless what anyone wants to make of Thole's improved numbers at the plate this season, there is no way his bat plays at first or DH, even in a platoon scenario.

If the team sells on Lind, Thole is not the answer to filling that role.