Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Vladdy Heats Up, Again

Its your long weekend abbreviated minor league update. Over the weekend Vlad Guerrero Jr. picked up seven hits. Danny Jansen also had a good weekend. Richard Urena's bat is starting to look alive again, while Max Pentecost is finding that it is tough to learn how to be a regular catcher and keep hitting.

On Saturday New Hampshire banged out 15 hits. Danny Jansen had two hits, following his three hits on Friday. Ryan McBroom, Gunnar Heidt and Emilio Guerrero each homered. Chris Rowley made the start for Francisco Rios who is on the DL. Five and a third shutout innings but just one K. Dunedin had lots of hits too, Connor Panas led the way with three.

On Sunday Raffy Lopez hit his fifth AAA home run, the eventual game winner. Dwight Smith had two hits to celebrate his return from the major leagues. Four relievers combined on a four hitter. New Jay, Cesar Valdez had been scheduled to start.

In AA Sean Reid-Foley had a decent start, 6 innings, 5H, 4R/ER, 4bb, 6K. Richard Urena had a triple, one of five hits he had over the weekend. They say it is tough to catch and hit, the work on catching takes away time to focus on hitting. Max Pentecost seems to be in that spot right now, his hitting has dropped off since he started catching more regularly. He had two 0-3's over the weekend and his average is down to .287. Angel Perdomo had a rough start, five walks in 3.1 innings.

The Lansing hitters were indeed hitting all weekend. Vlad Jr. had a great weekend, over three games he was 7-11 with 2 doubles. His batting average had been getting down close to .300 but now its up to .333. Bo Bichette had a quiet weekend, just 3-14. Edward Olivares was 5-14 but he did strike out six times. The on base machine, Jake Thomas only walked once over the weekend, but he did have five hits.

Posted by Gerry on Sunday, May 21 2017 @ 08:11 PM EDT.

Vladdy Heats Up, Again | 12 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

John Northey - Monday, May 22 2017 @ 12:29 AM EDT (#342344) #

After tonights games a few stats...

Vlad (3B, 18, A): 333/432/519 over 129 AB's
Bo Bichette (SS, 19, A): 356/433/561 over 132 AB's
Lourdes Gurriel (SS, 23, A+): 1 for 2 living on the DL
Danny Jansen (C, 22, A+/AA): 377/428/558 (31/4 games)
Max Pentecost (C, 24, A+): 287/338/512 in 129 AB's
Cavan Biggio (2B, 22, A+): 279/379/367 in 147 AB's
Anthony Alford (OF, 22, AA): 325/411/455 in 123 AB's (0-6 in majors)
Reese McGuire (CA, 22, AA): 216/311/373 in 51 AB's on DL

Pitching
Geno Encina 22 A: 1.04 ERA in 26 IP (10 G in relief), 10-21 BB-SO. ERA in the low 1's over 20+ IP catches my eye everytime.
Ryan Cook (1.13 ERA, 24 IP 7 BB 23 SO, 10 relief, 1 start, 24 yrs old A+)
Chris Rowley (26 AA: 1.80 ERA, 30 IP 4 BB 29 SO, 11 relief, 2 starts)

bpoz - Monday, May 22 2017 @ 09:06 AM EDT (#342346) #

You picked the cream of the crop John N. Some great performances are coming from V young hitters.

I am hoping for promotions within the next month.

John Northey - Monday, May 22 2017 @ 10:31 AM EDT (#342347) #

Fun looking at those A/AA ball hitters. A few years ago it was pitchers/pitchers/pitchers now it is all hitting.

RH starters
10+ K/9: Estrada
9+ K/9: Bolsinger (AAA & Majors), Jordan Romero (24 A+ 2.45 ERA), Sean Reid-Foley (21 AA 5.81 ERA 6.1 BB/9), Mike Ellenbest (22 A 7.91 ERA)

LH Starters
10+ K/9: Happ, Ryan Borucki (23 A+ 4.11 ERA high BABIP),
9+ K/9: Liriano (7.3 BB/9)

A few years back I think we had a stack of 9+ K/9 starters which resulted in a strong group of starters (Stroman, Sanchez, plus a few sent away). Hopefully in a few years we'll be talking about the killer offense the minors built up today.

bpoz - Monday, May 22 2017 @ 11:43 AM EDT (#342348) #

A few years ago we had a lot of good catching prospects led by JPA. This led to Y Gomes being undervalued. But you have to give the most playing time and opportunity to the prospects that you value the highest.

That being said. AA has a lot, maybe too many good SPs. So C Rowley is only given spot starts. Greene, Reid-Foley and Rios have earned the right to be in the 5 man rotation. Dawson has pitched well enough to keep his spot in the rotation. This will help his development to become a LH reliever for the ML team IMO. J Harris has been promoted aggressively. But he was a 1st round pick.

So if Rowley is being held back for the reasons I mentioned, then that has to be accepted.

Harris could become like Jenkins and Deck McGuire. After all prospects do fail. For that matter Rowley may also end up in that category.

uglyone - Monday, May 22 2017 @ 12:49 PM EDT (#342349) #

I think it's a nicely balanced system right now.

P: SRF, Maese, Greene, Zeuch
OF: Alford, (Pompey)
IF: Bichette, Urena, Gurriel
1B: Guerrero, Tellez
C: Jansen, McGuire, Pentecost

Those 14 guys are all pretty legit mlb candidates going forward, imo.

And then when you go fringier it's still pretty balanced i think:

P: Rios, Borucki, Harris, Perdomo, Jackson
OF: Ramirez, Smith, Thomas, Olivares
IF: Biggio, Gudino, Vicuna
1B: Jones
C: Rodriguez

greenfrog - Monday, May 22 2017 @ 02:00 PM EDT (#342351) #

The farm system is coming along nicely. One thing it lacks, though, is pitching prospect talent at the level of Sanchez, Syndergaard, Stroman, and Osuna. Let's hope that the current front office can acquire and develop some quality pitching to go along with the position players.

jerjapan - Monday, May 22 2017 @ 02:37 PM EDT (#342352) #

Pretty tough group of pitchers to match greenfrog. We've got talented pitching prospects, they just happen to be a season or more away, and many of them are struggling. Just look at that New Hampshire rotation - Greene, SRF, Harris, Rios and Dawson. All five guys have big league talent, and either Greene or SRF could be a number 2 starter if they realize their potential, as could Maese and Zeuch, arguably. Further down interesting arms include Perdomo, Borucki, Murphy, Romano and Jackson.

Just no potential aces on the horizon.

uglyone - Monday, May 22 2017 @ 02:53 PM EDT (#342354) #

they may have started slowly this year but what srf and maese did last year is no joke, and compares favorably to many very good pitching prospects - and like many (including the likes kf sanchez and thor in the past) the question marks on them largely have to do with their 3rd pitch. (and it sounds like both' struggles to start this year may be due to them being forced to use their changeups as much as possible).

Cracka - Tuesday, May 23 2017 @ 09:09 AM EDT (#342360) #

Anthony Gose made his debut as a pitcher last night for Lakeland in the FSL... and his first pitch was clocked at 99 mph! He pitched an inning an allowed a hit, a walk, and run... he also recorded his first strikeout.

mathesond - Tuesday, May 23 2017 @ 10:59 AM EDT (#342361) #

He pitched an inning an allowed a hit, a walk, and run... he also recorded his first strikeout.

4 more of those innings and he'd have had a Nuke LaLoosh start!

bpoz - Tuesday, May 23 2017 @ 01:43 PM EDT (#342362) #

If greenfrog is saying that our current best SP prospects will not possibly be in the same category as Sanchez, Thor and possibly Stroman, I am fine with that. That is a very high standard.

But somehow I did not think that Sanchez, Thor and Stroman
were doing well enough in the minors to achieve what they have in the Majors. They did have good minor league numbers.

Stroman was a college pick and got to the Majors fast. Thor and Sanchez made it in their 5th pro year. They would have needed 40 man protection against the Rule 5 draft.

Time is playing tricks with my memory, so I am getting many things wrongs.
So then is this right:- Draft picks were signing later in 2010 than currently. So a late signing in the draft year means that the playing time is less. So someone like Maese would pitch more innings in his signing year than Thor, Sanchez and Stroman.

So Maese gets an earlier start and therefore longer minor league development time.

There could be other factors affecting how soon the pro career starts. Like being in the college WS. Or having a very heavy college workload in the draft year.

Greene & Rios have to be in the majors by Sept 2017. Reid-Foley & J Harris by Sept 2018. This keeps them on the same ETA as Sanchez and Thor.
I believe my calculations are more or less accurate. If they are as good as Stroman, Thor and Sanchez the credit is not mine. The drafting person and player themselves deserve the credit.

Just joking about that. But I would like to not trade them.

bpoz - Tuesday, May 23 2017 @ 02:09 PM EDT (#342363) #

I finally figured out the OF promotions and demotions and the cost to the organization.

D Smith Jr was called up instead of A Alford to replace K Pillar because of the incident in Atlanta. This way Alford could continue getting ABs everyday instead of sitting on the Toronto bench. Smith on the other hand can sit on the bench in Toronto as he is not as valuable a prospect as Alford. Smith gets sent down when Pillar returned and the cost is only 1 option burned. It will burn out by mid June.

The injuries to Pearce and his replacement Ceciliani resulted in Alford coming up. He can go up and down since his 2017 option was burned in April.

Vladdy Heats Up, Again | 12 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.