Report from Today’s R-Phils Game

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Watched from the picnic area today.

Game was pretty dull. Lots of he pitchers for Reading were prospects.

The bad news was Aumont–pitched 4+ innings and produced maybe 1 bad swing all day. Flying Squirrels (yeah, I know) hit rockets all over the yard. Aumont topped at 90 (one time) with his FB and consistently hit 88. His best pitch was a 73 mph curve. He now throws from his ear a bit, which explains the loss of velocity. I have no hope for him a future major leaguer with this delivery and velocity–his FB just doesn’t move that much. He never got a lot out of his lower body when he pitched, but it seems like the Phils have shortened his arm motion and are working on being on-balance and hitting spots with him.  Hope he still has the 95 mph stuff around after they change his delivery.

Brummett pitched well in the 5th and 6th, threw at 90, topped at 92, and had a very deceptive breaking ball. Taubenheim had his first reasonably effective outing behind Brummett, hit 90, and also showed a good breaking ball. We left as German was warming up.

Maday (Richmond’s best starter) and Pena dominated the R-Phils. Berry, Spidale, and Brown all hit him hard in the first, but the first two were caught and Brown’s shots both went foul, then he got called out. For the rest of the day it was pretty dull on he offensive side.

Brown showed off his nice swing, but really didn’t connect with anything fair. Rizzotti looked solid at the plate even though he went 0/3. Galvis really struggled, swinging through a waist high FB with runners on to kill Reading’s only threat. Berry hit 2 balls hard, but both were caught. Brown looked a little tentative or disinterested in the OF, but his only real challenges were chasing down balls off the wall. Gosewisch has a gun for an arm and handles pitchers like a big-leaguer.

Weather held out, it was still a fun day at the park.  I’ll be back with a weekly report early this week when I get a bit more time.

21 thoughts on “Report from Today’s R-Phils Game”

  1. Glad I didn’t go to todays’s game, I was debating due to the weather. Besides I had gone to Fri and Sat’s games definetly picked the best two out of the series with Richmond at least. I’ve been to most of the home games this season and even a couple of the away games. Dom Brown needs to figure things out in the OF, even for AA standards he is sub par in the field.

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  2. Wow, that is not a good report. Could it be with the new mechanics he is trying to just get them right before he starts opening up with the velocity? 88 is not going to get it done.

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  3. Good to know that you have no hope for his future. I’d guess your “professional” opinion would be different if he had his A stuff. Did you make it past legion ball?

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  4. Chill Anonymous, where does he claim to be a “professional”, he’s just giving his opinion like everyone else here.

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  6. I agree that its a bit harsh…however, he’s entitled to his opinion. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

    I’m sure he suddenly didn’t lose 5-7 MPH off his fastball in 6 months. It was probably a rough day or a work in progress in his mechanics. I still think he ends up as a late-inning reliever in the Majors.

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  7. nepp
    “I’m sure he suddenly didn’t lose 5-7 MPH off his fastball in 6 months. ”
    I don’t know about that have you seen Grienke.

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  9. I was pretty alarmed by seeing those numbers on Aumont. However, on further consideration, I’m not going to take them too seriously, at least not yet. Aumont was throwing in the high 90s this past winter and he has not been overused or shown any other signs of injury or fatiged – it would be odd for a healthy, young, sparsely used pitcher to permanently lose such velocity overnight. It probably happens, but I would think such circumstances are extremely, extremely rare. Second, he’s tinkering with his mechanics – that alone could account for the difference. Third, and most importantly, while he’s tinkering with mechanics, he’s probably focused more on doing things right, rather than on going all out – this may account for the difference too.

    Since we’re talking about Greinke, people seem to remember, that he was horrible for SEVERAL YEARS when he was messing around figuring out what he was doing and, during that time, his velocity often dropped to 90 MPH or lower. He was a young, immature pitcher figuring out what he was doing. Sounds a lot like our man Phillippe, no?

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  10. Sorry for the horrible grammar – like most of you, I’m at work and have a lot to do, so the language is nowhere near as tidy as I would prefer.

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  11. By the way, I think Greinke was horribly overused last year. I HATE reading articles discussing pitch counts where some old player or sports writer complains about “babying” pitchers. That’s just a bunch of garbage. It has NOTHING to do with babying players. It has EVERYTHING to do with protecting a team’s investment and not ruining a player’s career. I mean, come on, sports teams used to refuse their players water on hot days and, instead of water, gave them bloody salt pills. Was that a good idea? No, of course not, it turns out that it was a stupid idea because now, with some medical advances, we know better. I think we know better too on arms – it’s about keeping people healthy.

    As I look at it, having a pitcher run really high pitch counts is both like a lottery (a lottery as in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” – if you know the reference) and a gas tank. A lottery because some pitchers can withstand high pitch counts and others cannot, but you really have very little idea as a team who can and who cannot – however, the more you overuse the pitcher, the more likely it is you “win” the lottery. It’s also like a gas tank because once you start running high pitch counts, I think, at some level, you start to wear the pitcher down, perhaps permanently.

    For everyone bizzaro reference to Nolan Ryan, there are 20 guys out there that had short careers or who you never heard of because their arms were beat to crap. Even those that can “take it” tend to wear out sooner due to high pitch counts. Everyone likes to point to Robin Roberts, but Roberts pitched so many innings early in his career, that, by the time he was 29 he had to transition from being a power pitcher to a finesse pitcher – nobody seems to mention it, however.

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  12. A man comes on here and gives his opinion, and you anymous, have to act like a ass. He didn’t say he was a scout, just a guy like us all. you have opinion, are y a scout?a lot of us played high school and american legion, doesn’t mean we know anymore. grow up. Thank you phillchuck,

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  13. Let’s hope the Lee trade prospects can come around after their slow starts. Gillies is still on the DL, Aumont is stuggling to get a guality start and J.C. Ramirez has not pitched in 10 days.

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  14. If a man wants to give an opinion, a man should be willing to take criticism about said opinion. I think his opinion is worthless as compared to looking at Aumont’s complete body of work this year. The flashes he has shown is not representative of somebody with absolutely no chance as phillychuck paints him.

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  15. Thanks for the write-up Phillychuck. I always enjoy reading first hand accounts, even if it was a pretty bland game. I just got my tickets for the Father’s Day game (taking my dad and my kids, so that will be a nice day), and I’ll certainly share my (very amateur) thoughts on the game afterwards. Hopefully Brown will still be there.

    – Jeff

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  16. “For everyone bizzaro reference to Nolan Ryan, there are 20 guys out there that had short careers or who you never heard of because their arms were beat to crap. Even those that can “take it” tend to wear out sooner due to high pitch counts. Everyone likes to point to Robin Roberts, but Roberts pitched so many innings early in his career, that, by the time he was 29 he had to transition from being a power pitcher to a finesse pitcher – nobody seems to mention it, however.”

    Agreed, and I’d say the ratio is more like 100:1. And sometimes you take every precaution and it still doesn’t work.

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  17. I’ve seen Aumont pitch in two games at Reading and his velocity in those games was just a tad higher than what Phillychuck reports. The highest mph I saw in those two games was 92, and that was a rarity. He pitched primarily 88 – 90 on the FB with some 91s and occassional 92. I think he is still working on his motion. He often looks very awkward and uncomfortable. By the way, I would not describe Brown as a bad defensive OF. He needs some work, but he’s okay to good by AA standards.

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  18. Nepp
    Greinke FB velocity:

    2009 – 93.7 mph
    2010 – 92.5 mph

    You know these things. But as far as I could see he didn’t top
    90 yesterday. I hope Aumont finds his way. But as far as the trade goes. It gets worser and worser (you can quote me)
    The Marlins and the Braves are scouting Lee.

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  19. neither team the braves or the marlins will finish within 10 games of the wildcard spot. it would be fantastic for lee to go to one of those teams

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  20. I was at the game yesterday to see Aumont pitch. Good friend of mine pitches for the Flying Squirls (Craig Clark). He told me when we got the three players for the Lee that none of them were any good. He has played against them. Everything I saw of Aumont yesterday justified that. However I think the gun at the stadium was slow. I walked behind the one scout that was there and he was registering 92-93 on his gun THey are all young but the returns so far is not good

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  21. LOL…this is some funny stuff….a good read for the end of my day. I was never a buyer of what Ruben was trying to sell us in the Lee deal. In fact I say it goes down in history as one he would like to have back.

    At the same time the kid is just 20 and I agree the velocity doesn’t concern me provided he’s healthy and there is nothing to suggest he is not.

    Bottom line Phillipe is our property right now and we need him to find himself. Also I am huge proponent of pitch counts and innings pitched balanced with what the player tells you about how they feel. These guys are investments and its better to err on the side of caution.

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