August 23 Discussion

Box Score Recap

Last night’s box scores will follow this sentence.

Williamsport won 6-2.
Lakewood lost 9-7.
Clearwater lost 10-1.
Reading won 5-3 and lost 3-2.
Lehigh Valley lost 3-1.

29 thoughts on “August 23 Discussion”

  1. Even though CLW lost 10-1 and Aumont started, went 6 inning and took the loss, he did pitch well. He had 2 ER and 7Ks and a BB. The BB, to start the 7th, was the run that hung him with the loss. He was yanked after the BB and Whatcott imploded.

    Shreve should be called the alternating man. From July 10 to present, he alternated good and bad starts. The good starts (4) total 4 ER in 23 IP for a 1.56 ERA. His bad starts (4) he’s given up 18 ER in 18 2/3 IP. He’s pitched 109 innings in his 1st professional season. Injuries eliminated the 2 previous seasons. Next year could be a big year for him. He’s been good this year but inconsistent.

    Interesting decision by Lakewood to DH Hewitt and start Minken in RF. James sat out. Hewitt is better than Mintken in the field. I’m just wondering if James was a late scratch, after the lineup card was delivered? If that was the case, they couldn’t put Hewitt in the field because then the pitcher would have to hit.

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  2. I know Hewitt is a first round pick but at what point is he getting in the way of other players development. Phillies draft well but this one seems to be a huge bust. Just saying probably time to move on.

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  3. Florida T–
    There are really gonna face a dilemma with what to do with Hewitt next season. Should be interesting.

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  4. Hewitt should just continue to get promoted. There is really nobody he is blocking by moving up to Clearwater with J.James and L.Castro. I really doubt Santana or Dugan get double bumped so the real issue is going to be the 2011 Lakewood OF: Santana, Dugan, Alvarez, Altherr, Eldemire, Collier, Hudson.

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  5. I don’t see anyway Hudson starts in Lakewood. I completely agree about promoting Hewitt….there’s nothing to lose at this point.

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  7. Does anyone know players similar to Hewitt who struggled their first few years then it all clicked and they had a decent career?

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  9. FMBNG, I’ve looked and while there are batters with similar profiles, I can’t find anyone this bad who had any sort of career. Hell, it’s really hard to even find players that bad period.

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  10. Nice start for Aumont… his numbers are looking better and better.

    What to do with Hewitt; get him in a comfortable spot and let him stay there for a while. Somewhere he can be coached in how to approach the game and his at bats.

    Would be nice to see some 2011 projections of where guys might be.

    Is Lakewood a hitters league? Who is the hitting coach there?

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  12. Pitchers looking better lately: Aumont, as mentioned above and Savery, 8 hits, 2 walks and 2 runs in his last 9 innings over two appearances. Maybe the threat of making him into a hitter had some effect!

    Julio Rodriguez (Lakewood) got a start on August 20th and pitched 5 innings, allowing 2 hits, 3 walks, 1 run and had 6 Ks. Generally used in relief recently, his previous start, on July 26 was 6 innings of 1 hit shutout ball with 1 walk and 10 Ks. Overall, his numbers as a reliever are great; ERA of 2.50, 10 hits and 5 walks in 18 innings with 31 strikeouts; however, as a reliever he has also been amazing: ERA of 1.40 with 16 hits and 11 walks in 25 2/3 innings with 35 strikeouts. Rodriguez turns 20 later this week. I saw him in person last Sunday and there can be as much as a 20 mph difference between his fastball (93 or 94 max) and his offspeed pitches (74). Like most pitchers, he will go as far as his control will take him, but his upside potential is very high.

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  13. Im assuming Aumont doesnt make many people’s top 10 at the end of this season, and maybe ive assumed wrong. Pretend that he wasnt part of the Cliff Lee deal and instead drafted by the Phillies the same year and position the Mariners drafted him, would that change his Phillies ranking?

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  14. Julio Rodriguez gets listed by some as 87-89 on his fastball and others say 93-94. Is there anyway to find out who is right?

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  15. Regarding Aumont, I’ll be the first to concede that the following is far less than the whole story, but JUST looking at high A this year, Aumont (b. 1/7/89) versus May (b. 9/23/89):
    Aumont May
    ERA 3.98 5.01
    K/9 9.5 11.6
    BB/9 5.3 7.8
    HR/9 0.6 0.5

    Okay, that misses a lot. But they have had similar seasonal trajectories this year, and overall numbers which are at least somewhat comparable (with May of course having insanely good K data versus just very good K data). But Aumont compiled those overall numbers at a higher level, albeit being almost a year older. I think May would have to rank above Aumont at this point, but not THAT much higher.

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  16. FMBNG, I was there and I saw 93 and 94 on the Lakewood radar gun board. The only questions are:

    1. Was this an unusual game for him?

    Last year Hamels struggled to hit 93; this year he is in the mid nineties. The 87-90 numbers could be from Rodriguez’s performance last year. If you compare strikeouts by Rodriquez from last year to this, you will see a major increase, from 36 Ks in 34 innings last year at a lower level (Williamsport) to 66 in 43.2 innings at a higher level (Lakewood) suggesting that he may have a better fastball this year. Of course, it is possible that the one game I saw was an anomaly, and normally he strikes out a ton of hitters with an average fastball, but it seems unlikely.

    2. Is the Lakewood radar gun accurate?

    I suspect that the Lakewood radar gun measures the pitch speed as it comes out of the pitcher’s hand, because the numbers seemed to be posted before the ball even hit the catcher’s glove. Such guns will give a higher reading than the ones that measure the speed at home plate. The numbers for the other pitchers seemed pretty reasonable, but Rodriquez’s numbers might be lower on the other type of gun.

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  18. I was there Friday. As I posted in another thread, Rodriguez only hit 90 on the stadium gun two times all night, once in the first inning and once in the second. He was mostly at 87-89. He had more pitches in the 60s (four) than he did in the 90s. It didn’t seem like the stadium gun was slow … Chad James, the Greensboro pitcher, was sitting at 93-94 on the stadium gun all night.

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  19. I saw Rodriguez at the end of July, and he was consistently registering 86-88. He hit 90 once that I can recall. That was in a 3 or 4 inning appearance in relief of Brody Colvin. Perhaps he is one of those guys who can dial it up for an inning or two, but not as much over the course of a game? From what I remember, Colvin was consistently in the low 90s, and I think he dialed it up to 94-95 on a few occasions. Not sure what that says, if anything, about the accuracy of the gun.

    I should also add, I’m not a scout at all. Just a guy reporting what I saw on the stadium gun.

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  20. Had to LOL at how this was phrased in Conlin’s article:

    “..was arrested in the parking lot of a Clearwater gentleman’s club for having sex while nude…”

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  21. Hard to believe that I saw the same pitcher as Cat Stoker and Phillyesq, but in the game I saw, Rodriquez was throwing harder than Colby Shreve (who hit 91 or 92) but not as hard as Mike McGuire (95 and 96). However, perhaps the key to his success is the differential between the fastball and the offspeed stuff which was as much as 20 mph when I was there, and according to Cat Stoker, was also close to 20 mph.

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  22. Phil’s hired HOF’er Bruce Sutter today as player development pitching coordinator. Lamar says he will be evaluating AAA and AA. Gotta love that. Can’t wait to hear if Schwim has any contact and what kinda advice he doles out.

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  23. Supposedly Rodriquez has some deception to his delivery which is contributing to his success.

    From the blueclaws blog:

    What strides have you seen from Julio Rodriguez from his first run here in early June? He had one outing that was a little rough in West Virignia, but he pitched well when he was here before. He has some deception in his delivery. There are a lot of fastballs that are right there and look hittable and they don’t hit it. There some movement on his ball as well. His curveball is good, his changeup is good enough, but a lot of it plays to deception it plays out harder than 89 mph. To hitters it looks like 94-95. He’s done just as well for me as he did earlier this year.

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  25. Anyone see Biddle’s debut in the NYP? Thoughts? Line looks decent for his first start there: 4ip, 3h, 2bb, 4k, 1r.

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  26. Biddle has better peripheral numbers at age 18, than Trevor May had at the same age and level. Biddle should easily be top 10 and maybe ranked higher than May.
    Phillipe Aumont had better peripherals than Trevor May at A , at the same age. May was a starter, but Aumont was in the most extreme hitters league, while May was in a pitchers league. Even this year, Aumont’s numbers in Clearwater are better than or equal to Trevor May. It would be no crime to have Aumont in the top 10 if you have Trevor May top 8.

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  27. I was at the Crosscutters game on Saturday. It was Jesse Biddle’s first start there. There is no speed gun so I have no idea how fast he was throwing. He just had some control issues, but his curveball seemed really good and the other team seemed to not be able to get near it at times. He got into some trouble in the second inning but worked through it. It could have been a lot worse. Altherr is really skinny, like skinnier than Cole Hamels. The bat boy was probably bigger than him (and a lot of other crosscutters) but he did have a hard hit double and looked extremely fast. He almost out ran a routine groundout. Dugan looks really good at plate (probably the best at bats of all crosscutters). When he makes contact with the ball he hits it hard. Hudson looks smaller/shorter than I thought he would (I thought he was a two sport athlete that was considering playing football). He seems lost at the plate and probably had the worst at bats of all the crosscutters. In defense, at one point he asked for time from the umpire and the umpire didn’t grant it, he stepped out and watched the pitcher throw a breaking ball for strike three…but he probably wouldn’t have swung anyway. Seemed fast but Altherr’s speed impressed me the most.

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  28. Phillies Red:

    I was at Biddle’s 1st game at Williamsport on Saturday. He pitched a better game than is reflected in the stats.

    In the second inning, with runners on first and second, the umpire completely missed what should have been the third strike on a curveball to Adam Melker. The whole crowd booed the call and the Crosscutter’s radio announcer questioned “where was that ball?”. I was sitting directly behind home plate and I also believed that pitch was a strike. That would have been the third out of the inning. On the very next pitch, Melker singled to drive in the run and runners moved to third and second on the throw to the plate. Biddle then walked the next batter. Julian Sampson then started warming up in the bullpen. The radio announcer indicated that Biddle is on a strict pitch count which is why he did not pitch more than 5 innings in any of his outings in the GCL. Had the umpire not missed the call, Biddle would have given up one less run, one less hit and one less walk and probably would have pitched into the 5th.

    The Crosscutter’s radio announcer said that Biddle throws a 91-92 mph fastball but he also said that he thinks that Biddle’s fastball looked faster than that. It seemed to me that the hitters could not catch up to his fastball. He seemed to be throwing it right past them.
    There are no radar gun readings in the park. Since I was behind home plate I tried to read the readings on the radar guns handled by Cutters’ other pitchers (Mario Hollins & David Buchanan, who were charting Biddle’s pitches) but was unable to. Biddle “seemed” to throw harder than Juan Sosa who pitched in the 8th and 9th and the announcer said normally throws at 95 mph.

    The radio announcer indicated that Biddle’s ticket to the Major Leagues will be with his curveball. He throws a beautiful curve that seems to lock the hitters and sometimes the umpires. He threw a lot of curves in the game. I think he threw almost 50% curves over the course of the game. His curve clearly makes his fastball seem faster.

    The announcer indicated that Biddle is 6’6” and 220 lbs. but his weight seems heavier than that and I would agree.

    The announcer indicated that the scout that found Biddle was none other than former 1st round Phillies pick Eric Valent. He said that Valent was the Crosscutter batting coach two year ago and decided to go back to “Scout school”. I did not know that there was such a thing as “scout school”. Valent came back and the first person he found for the Phillies was Biddle.

    On other notes:
    Julian Sampson looked very good in his 3 inning of work. He struck out 4 and seemed to be very effective in keeping the ball down.
    Kelly Dugan looks like a very good hitter. Everything he hit was hard (even the outs) and the ball seems to have a different sound when he hits it almost like the ping sound made by balls hit by aluminum bats. He also looks like he runs fast although not as fast as Altherr and Hudson. The radio announcer said he would love to see a race between Altherr, Hudson and Melker the rightfielder for the Muckdogs.
    Altherr also looks like a hitter and hit a beebee to the right center wall for a double. Hudson has no clue how to hit. He struck out twice (looked very bad doing it) and hit a weak grounder to third but almost beat it out. The third baseman was playing up. But Hudson is a very good centerfielder who covers a ton of ground.
    Edgar Duran who is listed as a right hand hitter appears to be a switch hitter as he batted left handed four times against several right handed pitchers.
    The Cutters ended up with only 2 hits on the night.

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