Batter's Box Interactive Magazine

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. continues to impress in AA and a number of stellar pitching performances dot your weekend MLU.

Buffalo Bisons

On Saturday, the Bisons were overmatched by Red Sox prospect Jalen Beeks. On Sunday, Deck McGuire returned the favour with five innings of shutout, two-hit baseball. Danny Jansen homered on Sunday and is hitting .310 in the early going here. No Rowdy Tellez this weekend as he is reportedly suffering from an illness. Joe Biagini was hit around over five-plus innings on Saturday.

New Hampshire Fisher Cats

New Hampshire lost Saturday and had play suspended Sunday. Jon Harris had a start to forget on Sunday. He got tagged for eight earned in three-plus innings of work. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had three hits on Saturday and is now hitting .373. Bo Bichette had a hit as well and is flirting with .300. Bichette has yet to homer this year, but has five doubles and three triples. He also seems to be running more. He has eight steals thus far.

As one does with superstar prospects, we nitpick. My nits with the two are as follows: I’m a tad concerned by Guerrero Jr.’s weight. I worry that every time he reports for Spring Training he’s going to be 20-30 pounds heavier. I look at guys like Miguel Cabrera and Pablo Sandoval and worry. With Bichette I worry that his inside-out swing is not going to translate to the Big League level. Maybe there is only 8-10 home run power there. Worse, maybe he’s going to struggle with Major League fastballs.

Dunedin Blue Jays

Two low scoring affairs as Dunedin generated just seven hits as they dropped both games by a combined 3-1 (2-1; 1-0). On Saturday, Justin Dillon pitched five shutout innings and on Sunday Angel Perdomo pitched five one-run innings.

Lansing Lugnuts

Lansing brought the bats out on Saturday and on Sunday split a double-header. Kacy Clemens led the way Saturday with two homeruns. Yennsy Diaz was the standout perfomer on Sunday with six shutout innings of baseball.

Three Stars

3. Kacy Clemens

2. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

1. Deck McGuire

Saturday’s Box Scores

Sunday’s Box Scores

Posted by sam on Monday, April 30 2018 @ 02:23 PM EDT.

Weekend Update | 23 comments | Create New Account

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

GabrielSyme - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 02:46 PM EDT (#357103) #

Kevin Smith had a pretty strong weekend - 5/11 with 3 2B, 1 3B. He's improved his contact rate enormously since last season, and still getting lots of extra-base hits. He's on par with Warmoth as a prospect in my mind.

Another under-the-radar guy in Lansing is the 2B, Cullen Large, who is showing a little power this year, while having a Vlad Jr-esque BB:K ratio.

Gerry - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 02:58 PM EDT (#357105) #

The Lansing lineup has five .300 hitters at the top. They lead the league in many offensive categories.

Nigel - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 03:21 PM EDT (#357106) #

Once you factor in defence and that Smith is 10 months younger than Warmoth, its possible that he's already a better prospect. As noted, strike zone control was the major red-flag last year.

Nigel - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 03:25 PM EDT (#357107) #

Harris continues to struggle at NH. I'm really not sure why they haven't tried a bullpen conversion with him.

hypobole - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 04:14 PM EDT (#357109) #

Josh had 3 PA's as DH Saturday - a flyout, a groundout and a pop up, then was replaced. He didn't play at all Sunday. Maybe that was the plan, but it doesn't seem like a quick-return-to-Toronto plan.

Ryan Noda, who was drafted as a first baseman and played most of last year there, has only played once at first this year. He's spent most of his time in LF, a few games in RF, and played the 2nd game of Sunday's double dip in CF. A very rare move up the defensive spectrum, I'd imagine.

Shoeless Joe - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 04:28 PM EDT (#357111) #

I think its a bit much to say Smith has better strike zone judgement than Warmoth, as they have very comparable BB% and K% this season. This is while Warmoth is a higher level and not showing the power Smith is. On a side note: Warmoth last 8 games: 0.321/.387/.464 - 0.851 OPS

Nigel - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 04:42 PM EDT (#357112) #

Sorry Joe, my post wasn't clear. I wasn't trying to suggest that Smith has better strike zone judgement than Warmoth (Smith's major issue last year was his strike zone judgement).

Gerry - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 04:43 PM EDT (#357113) #

Donaldson's target is Friday. He likely played in extended today, then he should Tuesday, Wednesday for Dunedin, and at 3B, Thursday off, play for the Jays on Friday.

uglyone - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 04:49 PM EDT (#357115) #

best 19yr old AA seasons since 2006 (i.e. as far back as fangraphs goes).

1.Heyward: 195pa, +4.7bb-k%, 190wrc+
2.Vladdy: 91pa, +1.1bb-k%, 185wrc+
3.Acuna: 243pa, -15.6bb-k%, 159wrc+
4.Bogaerts: 97pa, -20.6bb-k%, 159wrc+
5.Upton: 306pa, -4.6bb-k%, 158wrc+
6.Mazara: 97pa, -13.4bb-k%, 157wrc+
7.Trout: 412pa, -7.5bb-k%, 156wrc+
8.Montero: 181pa, -3.9bb-k%, 152wrc+
9.Albies: 371pa, -6.5bb-k%, 148wrc+
10.Odor: 144pa, -10.4bb-k%, 147wrc+
11.McCutchen: 87pa, -13.8bb-k%, 145wrc+
12.Lindor: 91pa, +7.7bb-k%, 131wrc+
13.Profar: 562pa, -2.4bb-k%, 127wrc+
14.Machado: 459pa, -4.8bb-k%, 120wrc+
15.Stanton: 341pa, -19.9k%, 111wrc+
16.Castro: 122pa, -1.6bb-k%, 109wrc+
17.Martinez: 385pa, -12.0bb-k%, 107wrc+
18.Tejada: 553pa, -4.0bb-k%, 106wrc+
19.Bauers: 285pa, -7.0bb-k%, 105wrc+
20.Harper*: 147pa, -7.5bb-k%, 100wrc+ (*- 18yrs old)

So only Heyward was comparable to what Vladdy is doing. And for Heyward that was by far the best season of his career - in no other year or level did he even crack 150wrc+.

85bluejay - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 04:55 PM EDT (#357116) #

Smith & Warmoth are close - most evaluators had Smith as more likely to stick at SS coming out of the draft and that's a separator for me especially if Smith can improve on his swing & miss.

85bluejay - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 04:58 PM EDT (#357117) #

Hope Donaldson comes back healthy & Productive - he's such a natural fit for Atlanta in July if things go south for the Jays.

GabrielSyme - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 05:17 PM EDT (#357118) #

Smith's swinging strike rate this year is 8.1%, almost halved from last year's 15% at Bluefield. Warmoth has been steady in the 10-11% range. I'd expect part of this is a real gain and part a hot streak on Smith's part. Warmoth's stats actually look better this year too - last year he had mediocre components and a great babip. This year his BB:K ratio has improved significantly, and his contact rate has improved also (though not nearly as much as Smith's), but he has a pretty poor babip.

greenfrog - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 05:54 PM EDT (#357120) #

I would just like to note the possibility that the Liriano-Hernandez trade (facilitated by the earlier Hutchison-Liriano/McGuire/Ramirez trade with the Pirates) may go down in history as one of the best trades ever made by the Jays. That is all.

bpoz - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 06:09 PM EDT (#357123) #

Liriano was definitely a salary dump by Pittsburgh. With Houston I don't know.

Hernandez was a good prospect and surplus to Houston.

From Pittsburgh Liriano was a huge potential #5 SP upgrade on paper. Did not work out.

This type of deal is always available.

Verlander was unloaded on Houston in late August. Very big salary dump.

scottt - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 07:14 PM EDT (#357130) #

An outfielder doesn't buy you a good starter. The Brewers would have loved to trade Domingo Santana and Keon Broxton for a starter. Instead, Broxton is in AAA after hitting 28 home runs last year and Braun is playing 1B for Eric Thames.

hypobole - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 07:53 PM EDT (#357135) #

bpoz, Verlander was not a salary dump, at least by my interpretation. A salary dump to me is trading a player who makes more (often a lot more) than he's worth. Verlander was pitching great at the time of the trade.

Tigers got 3 of their Top 10 prospects, including their #1 prospect,for Verlander.

bpoz - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 08:23 PM EDT (#357136) #

hypobole your interpretation is very good. Not a salary dump.

BUT ... traded in late Aug. Maybe "no trade clauses" in effect.

You win this dispute because of the 3 top 10 prospects from a very highly ranked system. Plus the #1.

Also Cheers to you. Excellent points.

uglyone - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 09:38 PM EDT (#357139) #

liriano was dead weight really.

we picked up Teoscar for free.

greenfrog - Monday, April 30 2018 @ 10:30 PM EDT (#357144) #

The point is that it was the Jays, and not any of the other 29 teams, that took steps to acquire Hernandez. The fact that they were able to get him for Liriano just makes the transaction that much better.

uglyone - Tuesday, May 01 2018 @ 01:01 AM EDT (#357152) #

oh absolutely. just reinforcing how crazy low the price is - we could have got him for anything at all. astros weirdly didn't value him, and maybe we just stole the next bautista.

greenfrog - Tuesday, May 01 2018 @ 09:42 AM EDT (#357161) #

And fully controlled through his prime years at low cost. It really was a great (one might even say a “ninja”) trade by the front office. You need to have a few of these kinds of moves to compete in the AL East.

bpoz - Tuesday, May 01 2018 @ 09:47 AM EDT (#357162) #

greenfrog started the Liriano trade value discussion. I am in agreement with all participants. I look for a talent acquisition style taking into account budget, goals and purpose. Goals/purpose may be go for it or rebuild.
Houston was go for it mode. Verlander and now G Cole. Would they have taken Liriano for free? Probably. Take N Aoki and we will throw in something. T Hernandez.

hypobole - Tuesday, May 01 2018 @ 10:17 AM EDT (#357165) #

Teoscar came up a couple of times in Sawchick's FG chat, including this which is basically what bpoz said:

Joe Joe: On Teoscar, I expect part of it was undervaluing him, part trying to get money off the books in Aoki, and part overvaluing what Liriano would do in the playoffs.

Travis Sawchik: Even the best of orgs make mistakes

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