Lehigh Valley had a 4-3 week after a 4-0 win last night against Buffalo and now stand at 28-30 on the year and in third place of the Northern Division of the International League, 7 games behind division leading Pawtucket. Last night, the ‘Pigs began a four game series on the road in Buffalo, before they return home this Saturday to start a four game series against Charlotte.
‘Pigs Leaders: Cesar Hernandez leads the league in triples (6) and is tied for 7th in SB(15); Jermaine Mitchell is 2nd in triples (4); Cody Asche is tied for 3rd in triples (3) and 9th in RBI’s (37); Cody Overbeck is tied for 6th in HR (11); Darin Ruf is 7th in strikeouts (56); Josh Fields is 8th in avg (.331).
Pitchers:Ethan Martin has the 7th worst ERA (5.60), and is 3rd in walks allowed (32); Jake Diekman leads the league in games (26), and is 6th in saves (8); BJ Rosenberg has the 8th worst WHIP (1.58)
‘Pigs Prospects: Cody Asche has hit .256 with 1HR and 7RBI over his last 10 games and now is at .266/.324/.435 with 6HR and 37RBI on the year. Asche continues to progress as we would hope, playing a good third base with two steps forward and a step back at the plate, as you would expect from a prospect at this stage.
Leandro Castro has been very hot, hitting .390 with 3 HR 11RBI and 2SB over his last 10 games. Amazingly, Castro already has 4 walk off hits this season, including three homers. On the year, Castro is at .275/.317/.429 with 6HR 28RBI and 13SB and has to be considered a pleasant surprise, adjusting to AAA pitching very well. Castro deserves attention as he does have the ability to hit for power and can run. His lack of plate discipline has greatly improved this year but still needs work.
Ethan Martin is undefeated in his last 6 starts going 4-0 with a 4.15 ERA, after starting the year 1-2 with a 7.66 ERA in 5 starts. All this makes up a 5-2 record in 11 starts with a 5.60 ERA and a 1.55 WHIP. The ERA and WHIP are simply not good and are as a result of very sporadic control(Martin has walked 32 in 54.2 innings). Opponenets are hitting .260 against him, .264 with RISP. Before Martin can be legitimately considered for the bigs, he has to be able to throw strikes.
Jake Diekman remains an enigma. He will have a game where he is unhittable, and follow that with a game where he cant throw the ball over the plate, and when he manages to, it gets hit a long way. In May, Diekman made 14 appearances, going 0-0 with a 5.54 ERA and 7 saves. While the 7 saves in a month is outstanding, opponents hit .309 against him and Diekman walked 8 in his 13IP during the month, both miserable stats. On the year, Diekman is 1-0 with a 6.58 ERA is 26 games. He has earned 8 saves. Opponents are hitting .301 against him this year and his WHIP stands at a very ugly 2.04.
BJ Rosenberg set career highs for runs allowed in his last outing with a very poor start against Gwinnett. On the year, Rosenberg has now made 8 starts and 3 of them have been quality starts. Lehigh Valley is just 2-6 in games Rosenberg starts. On the year, Rosenberg is 1-5 with a 5.17 ERA, with a very high 1.57 WHIP. On the positive side, opponents are hitting just .169 with RISP, however since there have been plenty in that category, even with a good success rate, plenty of runners have scored.
Next Week: Ruf, Aumont, Joseph, Robles
News and Notes:Josh Fields has hit safely in his last 13 games, hitting .429 over that span including 8 multi hit games.
—Steve Susdorf has reached base in 21 of his last 24 games, hitting .343 over that time frame.
–Catcher Steven Lerud has thrown out the last 4 runners attempting to steal on him.
–Lehigh Valley is 9-4 in one run games, the best record in AAA.
–Cody Overbeck hit two homers on Wednesday vs. Buffalo and leads Lehigh Valley with 11 on the year.
–Amazingly, ‘Pigs starters have lasted 5 innings in just 31 of 58 games this year,
Probables: Wed:Miner Thur:Martin; Fri: Rosenberg; Sat:Valdes
Transactions: Last Thursday, 2B Cesar Hernandez was called up to Philadelphia, his major league debut. Last Friday, P Bobby Bramhall was sent down to Reading and replaced on the roster with RP Mauricio Robles, who is a member of the 40 man roster. Also on Friday, RP Joe Savery was called up to Philadelphia and INF Miguel Abreu was called up to Lehigh Valley from Reading. On Monday, Michael Martinez was optioned back to Lehigh Valley.
Phuture Phillies 
Does Susdorf have a future as a bench player in the big leagues? The guy continues to hit at every level, and at some point I think they have to give him a chance to earn a bench role. I know he will never be an every day player but I think his hit tool can help the big club.
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I appreciate and like Susdorf alot so you may have to take that into account. His strength is that he’s a smart, professional hitter. He doesn’t strike out a lot and he’ll take a walk. He gets on base at a pretty good clip and his fielding is very good for balls he gets to. One weakness is he’s not very fast. He can field all the balls hit within his small perimeter but he’s not a guy who can go get the balls in the gap. He’s improved immensely over his career but he’s only a corner OF’er and that leads to his 2nd weakness. He doesn’t hit for power. In his last 800 ABs at AA & AAA, he’s only had 8 HRs. 400 of those ABs were in Reading and if you can’t hit the ball out of that park, then “singles hitter” becomes your nickname. He has 5 SBs against no CS but he’s a smart base-runner so he picks his spots.
I love what Susdorf brings to the game every day but I also love Jeremy Slayden. I prayed Jeremy would get the call up He was another professional hitter who had a little more power than Susdorf and never got the call-up.
Chances of getting a call-up by the Phils are slim and none. Could he be valuable to some 2nd division team, maybe. I’d love to see someone give him a chance.
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Susdorf and Perkins seem kind of similar in this regard. professional hitters without much power limited to corner outfield.
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Perkins upside and pedigree is more, IMO, then Susdorf’s was at age 22. For one his size works in Perkins’ favor.
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I’m curious, what’s the theory behind providing RISP numbers? Is there some reason to expect them to be more meaningful in the minors than the majors, like with BABIP?
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The theory is pretty simple. It shows how a player performs with additional pressure on them. Very telling.
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Gregg,
On the one hand, I do think that for minor league players, talking about “playing well under pressure” makes some sense, simply because part of the minor league process is weeding out players who fold under pressure. One reason why “clutch” for major league players is at least 99% BS is because that weeding out process has already occurred.
OTOH, I would be mightily surprised if minor league situational data – usually involving extremely small sample sizes – has ANY predictive value, at all. Certainly before concluding otherwise I would need to see some data showing such predictive value.
This is one area where the stat guys – whether “traditional” stat guys who put value on performance with RISP, or “SABR” stat guys, who generally don’t – quite rightly are trumped by on the scene subjective observation by managers & coaches.
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Yeah Susdorf is going to get a cup of coffee in the Majors as a 4th OF/pinch-hitter type. It might not be with the Phillies. Steve knows this, which is why he was really OK with his bench spot earlier in the year with the IronPigs–working on pinch-hitting mentality. Now that Gillies has been sent down, Susdorf has more of a regular/platoon spot in the outfield. He’s certainly got a nice swing.
Diekman seems to be wavering between supremely confident (trusting his stuff too much–and getting hit) and very unconfident (trying to get too cute–and walking guys). It’s just my take, but I think Brundage is trying to challenge him to be more consistent mentally by using him as the “closer.” Minor league teams don’t usually have guys function as closer very often, but I think this is Brundage’s way of trying to help Jake’s game mentally. My take on the pitching part of it is that if he could command the FB a bit better, he might gain a little confidence in the breaking pitch and be able to work ahead a bit more. Just my take on it.
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Diekman is getting lefties out (.185 BA against) but not righties (.301 BA against). He should at least be a serviceable left-handed specialist, although, in recent years, the Phillies have preferred that any lefties they carry should also be able to get out right-handed hitters as well.
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yeah, in-person observation on that is that the RH batters, if patient enough, can eventually get a FB over the plate to drive. Diek doesn’t have enough confidence or control of that breaking pitch to either (a) get it over the plate or (b) trust himself not to go Aumont with it (throw it to the backstop).
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